


Wander

by SkylerMaknae (akibangel)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Bang Chan & Lee Felix are Best Friends, Bc that’s what you’ll get, Boys In Love, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Falling In Love, Friend Jealousy, Han Jisung | Han & Lee Felix are Best Friends, Heavy mentions of cup noodles, Hwang Hyunjin is Whipped, I just feel bad for Chan, Idiots in Love, Lee Felix is Whipped (Stray Kids), Lee Felix is a Panicked Gay (Stray Kids), Lee Felix-centric (Stray Kids), Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Okay to be honest the crime isn’t that petty, Partners in Crime, Platonic Cuddling, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Friendship, Running Away, Slow Burn, Soft Lee Felix (Stray Kids), Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, We Just Love Each Other, Y’all want side minsung?, more lighthearted than it probably should be?, petty crime, they’re just whipped for each other tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29531511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akibangel/pseuds/SkylerMaknae
Summary: “not all who wander are lost...”Felix decides to run away from home, completely unaware of how this decision will not only change the lives of his best friends, but also that of a strange boy he meets while on the run.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix
Comments: 78
Kudos: 110





	1. 01

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! this fic is originally found on wattpad (I’m crossposting my own works so don’t worry) 
> 
> the original fic can be found there under the same title if you want to experience it with its original images and all the bells and whistles, but feel free to read here as well!

**Humans, funnily enough, do not cope well with "goodbyes."**

Tears fall, whether in the comfort of a silent room or in the agonizing sobs of a person departing from a loved one for the last time.

As far as mortal beings go, humans are _designed_ for goodbyes... and yet they're still hurt nonetheless.

It's only human nature to hold on. It can be seen in the childhood-cherished stuffed animals one still won't let go of despite long being an adult now. It can be seen in the longing glances towards an old friend who simply no longer has the time to talk.

And, on this cloudy night, it could be seen in the pained, tearful gaze of a boy in his bedroom, taking a long look at a picture on his smartphone of himself and another boy...

Before immediately shutting the phone off and smashing it against the ground, its screen going blacker than night as the glass shattered.

Lee Felix sobbed into his own hands as he knelt down, carefully picking up the destroyed smartphone and setting it down on his bed stand.

" _Goodbye_ ," he thought towards it, even if not intending to.

The bag he wore couldn't have been more than a few pounds, and yet it weighed heavily on his back. Inside it were a few spare changes of clothes, a toothbrush, some light snacks, a wad of spare cash, and most importantly: a burner phone. A cheap, prepaid flip phone that would soon replace the device he'd smashed to bits just a moment prior.

Felix knew he was as prepared now as he would ever be. He wiped his tear-stricken cheeks with the sleeve of his hoodie, staring at a Polaroid taped up on his wall of him and his two best friends.

" _Chan, Jisung_..." Felix whispered mostly to himself as he wandered over to his wall. "I hope you guys won't miss me too much," he spoke with a sad smile, ripping the picture down from his wall and shoving it into his backpack.

Earlier that day at school, Felix had made sure to hug both of them at least once. And although both had seemed a little confused about it at the time, he knew that once he was gone... they would understand why.

A quick glance at the clock told Felix it was time to go. It was nearing the dead of the night, and it was the perfect time to leave without being seen.

He shoved open his window, sending one quick glance back at his room to make sure he'd remembered everything.

His old stuffed animals begged him not to leave from the corner. A picture of his mother sat on the desk, her bright smile unaware of what her son was about to do. Even his posters on the wall seemed sad, knowing that the one who cherished them was now climbing out the window, with no intent of returning.

Yet Felix set his resolve. He jumped out into the dark, unforgiving night, shutting out his home life alongside the window of his room.


	2. 02

To be completely honest, Felix knew he’d been raised within a privileged household.

Money was never scarce, and the boy could buy, essentially, anything and everything he wanted so long as it was reasonable.

Sure, he had been told about "the importance of saving up," and many had tried to teach him "budgeting," whatever the hell that meant....

Yet those seemingly meaningless lessons now mocked Felix as he stared down at his cold hands, which clutched the last $5 that he possessed.

Perhaps if he wasn't so naive, he would've thought to take more money before leaving home; and yet he'd honestly thought only a couple hundred dollars could last him for a while.

After a hellish week of sleeping on park benches and in abandoned cars he'd found, he'd still managed to spend almost all of his original $200 on food and drinks.

With only five left, he was at a loss for what to do with himself. How could he survive without money? Would he have to give up and just... go home?

"Hey, kid," a grumpy man's voice grabbed Felix's attention, pulling him back to reality.

Around him laid a small convenience store, its cheap items lining every shelf.

The store's cork board displayed a mess of posters: lost dogs, wanted criminals... missing people, even. Felix eyed the familiar poster of another missing boy... some studious looking, glasses-wearing kid, with the last name of Hwang. He'd been gone for a while now, and admittedly, it was this boy's success at staying hidden that had driven Felix to make the choice to run away.

The cashier, a rather stoic looking middle aged man, didn't seem to be quite happy with the length of time Felix had spent staring longingly at their poster board.

"Are you gonna buy something or not? We don't tolerate loitering here," the cashier spoke warningly to Felix, who shrank back at the cruel tone of his voice.

"S... sorry," Felix apologized immediately, his voice small. Somehow even after a week of surviving the great concrete jungle, he was yet to develop even the slightest smidge of confidence.

"I'm still choosing... I'll be quick," he tried to explain himself.

The cashier only rolled his eyes. Being in this part of town, he'd likely seen his fair share of shoplifters and thieves, and the nervous, jittery young man counting his cash didn't exactly seem like the biggest threat at the moment.

While Felix was busy calculating exactly how much money he'd have left if he bought some hot coffee, the door to the store swung open, its cheerful bells a stark contrast to the bleak night outside.

Felix briefly glanced at the person who'd walked in. A man, seemingly, a fair bit taller than him, strolled down the aisle with an air about him that suggested he was searching for something.

As for what the man himself looked like... Felix honestly had no idea. A black hood, black face mask, and a dark blue cap all obscured the person's face from view.

This was a person who clearly did not want to be seen, and Felix respected that. It was none of his business, so he looked back to what he had been doing.

The cashier sitting up front sent the newcomer a wary glance, but quickly returned to his cellphone, most probably playing a game of some sort.

After a moment, the sounds of a crinkling wrapper grabbed Felix's attention. His gaze landed on the weird stranger, pacing down the same aisle as him, picking up a small bag of candy and...

Shoving it into his hoodie pocket?

_“Oh_ ,” Felix thought immediately.

A shoplifter. That explained the whole faceless situation going on, at the very least.

He tried his best to act blissfully unaware of what was happening next to him. It wasn't his business, and with his recent realization of how hard it was to make cash last, he almost somewhat respected the guy's bravery.

The man seemed to pick items at random, taking whatever looked the easiest to steal. Not the worst strategy, Felix thought. Yet the more items taken, the higher the risk was of getting caught...

Then there was that:

Getting caught.

"Wait, hey!" the shopkeep shouted from the counter, having looked up just in time to see the strange man slipping a bar of candy into his side pocket.

"Ah, fuck—" Felix heard the man swear under his breath, now dealing with the fact that he'd been seen.

"You gonna pay for that? Or are we gonna have a problem here?" the cashier said, cocking his head as he stared the man down. Most notably, the cashier had his hand on the store's phone, as a type of wordless threat to call for assistance.

Felix stared at the scene unfolding before him, a sort of morbid curiosity making him wonder how this would play out.

The stranger, despite his rather tall and imposing form, seemed to freeze on the spot.

"Haha, yeah," the man laughed nervously, his voice low, but not as deep as Felix would have expected. "Of course... just gimme a second."

The stranger made quite a show of digging through his pockets for his wallet, apologizing sheepishly every once and a while for taking so long to find his money.

It was then that Felix quickly understood: this guy clearly had no money on him at all. He was just buying time, likely hoping an escape route would pop up.

The cashier didn't seem to be believing this bullshit excuse, and as his face grew angrier, Felix felt an odd feeling swell up in his chest... one that almost stung like guilt.

"I'm paying for it,"  
Felix announced without thinking.  
"He's with me, I brought the money."

God dammit.   
Felix knew his stupid sympathy was really going to be the end of him this time. He'd always had a problem with being too giving towards people, but this?  
This really took the cake.

The stranger stared at him, wide eyed as Felix timidly padded over to the cashier, slapping his last $5 bill on the counter.

The price tag on the bar had read $3.99, so he basically was handing over everything he had left to the cashier.

"Tch, okay then," the cashier accepted the offer, taking the bill and punching a few things into the cash register's screen.

"Plus tax totals out to $4.15. Here's your change," the man went through the regular motions, placing a smattering of coins into Felix's small outreaching hand.

All he could do was shyly thank the cashier.

As he turned away, he let out a deep breath, knowing there was no point in staying in the store now that he officially had no money left.

Thus he hurried over to the store's exit, swinging open the door and stepping out into the chilling night air.

Maybe this was some sort of sign, that it was better to go back home and ruin everything, instead of run away. Or, if he stayed outside and starved, maybe it would bring him some good karma in the afterlife, at least?

Felix could only manage to sigh at his own behavior, walking across the empty parking lot. His mind was clouded with questions, mainly that of where to camp out and sleep that night.

The sound of running footsteps behind him didn't even register in his mind, too busy contemplating the idea of checking into a shelter.

Similarly, a shouted, "Stop! Wait!" from behind wasn't even noticed.

"Hey! Hold on, stop!"   
came a yell at a much louder volume.

Felix whipped around at the sound of someone shouting from almost right next to him, more frightened than he'd been all week.

"Shit!" Felix cursed as he took in the view of the mysterious broke stranger from the store, who had apparently decided to take up a new job of scaring Felix straight into the grave.

"What...?" Felix questioned, glancing over the man's fully covered form, suspicious.

"What do you want?"

"You should take this," the man insisted, holding out the snack bar that Felix had paid for.

"No, no," Felix argued back. "It's fine, you probably need it more than me."

"I really don't. Thanks for saving my ass back there, but it's fine," the stranger pleaded. "I actually have a lot of money."

Felix stared at the man for a moment. Though he could only see his eyes, his expression seemed way too sincere to be lying.

"You have money but you're shoplifting?" Felix questioned, his tone laced with disbelief.

"Yeah, I do. You looked tight on cash so I feel bad, I can't take this," the stranger handed the bar out once more, sort of pushing it into Felix's personal space.

"Well, yeah, that kinda was my last five dollars I just spent," Felix mumbled, a slight bitterness coming off in his tone. "It's fine though. I'll live."

"Your last five? Fuck, dude, at least let me pay you back or something—"

"It's really okay."

"I'll give you $100 and some french fries," the man offered, making Felix pause for a second.

This... weird, broke, suspicious, unidentifiable man was offering him a stupid amount of money and food, just for buying him a snack bar? The offer was admittedly tempting, but...

Felix wasn't stupid. He knew that accepting things from random strangers was dangerous, and not something anyone who values their life is supposed to do...

Which is exactly why he responded with a resounding: "Really...? Okay, deal."

The man nodded, and beckoned for Felix to follow him down the street.

"My car is parked at the end of this block, I have spare cash in there," the stranger said, raising yet another red flag high in Felix's mind.

Getting into a stranger's car? That was practically the first rule of "stranger danger;" that one should never, ever get into a random person's vehicle.

Thus, Felix responded with:

"Sure. Cool."

The boy had abandoned all suspicion at this point, and all his worries were long gone. He felt as if he might as well do this, even if all he got out of it was a couple of snack items.

The mysterious man nodded, before turning and strolling in silence, guiding the tired boy either to a great reward or to his inevitable torture and death.  
  


By now, Felix knew he had nothing to lose.


	3. 03

Apparently, much to Felix's luck, this weird stranger did not seem to be interested in murdering him.  
  


It was the dead of night, and Felix found himself walking behind a masked man along the dead, empty streets. His shadow weakly followed him, the old street lamps above illuminating the scene just enough to be noticed.

"My car's over here," the stranger announced as they turned a corner, quite far from the store where they'd met now.

Felix hummed to signal that he understood. His nervousness was skyrocketing, for obvious reasons. While he'd met a couple of homeless people here and there on the street thus far, he'd never done more than trade for a couple of items and then take his leave.

"Here," the man waved for Felix to follow as he approached a vehicle, parked on the side of the small street.

The man took out his key— a physical one, Felix notes. The car was a rather older model, and definitely couldn't have cost that much to buy.

"Sit in the front, I have all the stuff in the backseat," the strange man pulled open the door, pointing at the front passenger seat.

Felix reluctantly took a breath before climbing in the car, watching the man walk around the front and climb into the driver's seat.

As soon as both doors were shut, the man reached up and turned the ceiling light on, finally allowing Felix a good view of the inside of the car.

"Oh...?" he trailed off, looking around to the backseat of the car.

The stranger definitely hadn't been lying, much to Felix's surprise.

A large fleece blanket covered what appeared to be stacks of snack bags, candy bars, bottles of water, and even something that appeared to be a type of instant noodle. Fresh fruits sat on top of the other items, delicately placed there as to ensure they wouldn't bruise.

Felix glanced between the stockpile of food and the masked stranger.

"Did you get all of this from stealing?"

"No," the stranger replied, his tone somewhat sarcastic. "I'm just borrowing all of it."

"Jesus..." was all Felix could mutter, noticing the man pull out the items he'd nicked from the convenience store and toss them in the back with the rest.   
"How many stores have you done this to?"

"You ask a lot of questions, huh?" the stranger replied, reaching back to grab a bottle of water and offer it over to Felix.

"Sorry," Felix mumbled as he took the water gratefully.

"What's your deal anyway?" the man asked, leaning back in the driver's seat. "Got kicked out? On vacation?"

Felix shook his head as he took a swig of his water.  
"Neither, really. Ran away from home."

"Ooh, interesting," came the reply. The man perked up, looking Felix up and down.   
"Should've known. No one would kick out a cute little thing like you."

"Huh?" Felix responded immediately, almost choking on his water in shock. "I'm... wait, I'm a minor—" he spoke rapidly, yet stopped as the stranger broke out into laughter.

"Sorry! Sorry, that must've seemed creepy," the man laughed, sensing the scandalized way Felix was staring at him.

"To be fair though, if someone does actually lure you to their car with bad intentions, I don't think saying you're a minor will help..." the stranger advised honestly.   
"You might wanna find a better tactic."

"Hey," Felix huffed at this.   
"It worked on you at least."

"Yeah, I'm not a creep trying to kidnap young homeless boys," the stranger replied as he shook his head. He reached over to the glove box for a moment, digging around for something. Upon finding it, he pulled the item out and shut the compartment with the back of his hand.

"Besides, I'm a minor too. I'm not too sure it would be illegal even if I did something," the stranger said as he opened what appeared to be a wallet that he'd grabbed.

"You're really not doing a good job of making me trust you," Felix stated outright.

"Good. First rule of living like this is to trust no one. How long have you even been out here?" the stranger said in an almost scolding tone, grabbing some money out of his wallet and shoving it in his pocket.

"Um... like, a week or so?" Felix responded timidly.

The stranger immediately gave him a disbelieving look.

"A week? And you're already out of money?"

"I— I'm sorry???" Felix almost squeaked, feeling suddenly put on the spot. "I couldn't steal from my parents... I only had $200..."

The masked man rolled his eyes at this. "No offense, but I'm not sure how you're still in one piece."

"Please," Felix responded, "I know I wasn't prepared, okay? I just couldn't stay at my house anymore."

The stranger only sighed, sinking back in his chair.   
"Take whatever you want," he said, gesturing to the backseat of his car. "Back when I first ran away, god knows I would've needed some extra shit like this."

Felix side eyed the stranger for a moment, before leaning around the chair to sift through the items in back.

"You're a runaway too?" he questioned.

"Yeah," came the reply. "I've been gone for like, almost a year now."

Felix slightly nodded at this. Something about that timeframe seemed slightly familiar, for some reason... but he couldn't place a finger on why. 

He held up a bag of flavored popcorn."Can I have this?" he asked sheepishly, the other nodding in return.

The car was silent for a moment as Felix ate in peace. With the conversation absent, he was now fully able to scan over the other person.

Long, slender fingers played with the hem of the stranger's black hoodie, his hands being the only sign of nervousness within the man. 

It was to be expected, Felix thought. As much as he had the right to be terrified of the other, the stranger also had to worry about possibly inviting some psycho into his car.

His black hoodie and dark sweatpants were rather nondescript, and a pair of dark red converse were the only bit of color to his outfit.

At first, his stature had seemed rather imposing, but the more Felix looked at him, the more he realized that it was simply height that gave the illusion, rather than build.

"You gonna tell me your name?" the stranger asked out of the blue, making Felix stop mid-chew.

"You said to trust no one. Why should I?" Felix responded cheekily.

Although he couldn't see it for the mask, the stranger seemed to smile at this answer.

"Smart, he's learning quickly," he commented approvingly.

After a short while, the two struck up a light conversation about this and that. The weird masked guy seemed genuinely interesting, and as Felix ate through a couple of his snacks, he couldn't stop dwelling on a certain thing he'd been told.

"Hey. If you've got money, why are you stealing all this?" he brought up out of nowhere.

The other gave him a cautious look.

"If I answer honestly will you call the cops?"

"I'm literally also a runaway. Why would I do that to myself?"

The stranger let out a breath at this. "I've been paying for a motel room for about 4 months now. I use all my money for that so I can have a place to actually live."

"Ah," Felix mouthed in understanding. "Why would I call the police for that?That's smart. I'd do that if I had enough cash."

"I dunno," the stranger shrugged. "My family probably has a bounty out on me by now. You'd probably get rich for turning me in."

"Now who's the stupid one? Shouldn't have told me that," Felix responded, imitating the tone in which the stranger had scolded him earlier.

"I could knife you down in two seconds. You pose no threat to me," came the reply, immediately shutting Felix up.

A poignant silence followed. Felix stared out of the front window, his mind essentially blank as he failed to form a coherent response.

"My name... it's Felix," he almost whispered, followed by the stranger glancing at him.

"Thought you didn't wanna tell me?" the other responded, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, well, I kinda also don't wanna be stabbed to death in a random person's car, so..." he responded.

The stranger stared at Felix for a moment before sitting up, adjusting the rearview mirror.

"I promised you fries, didn't I? You wanna go to a drive thru?" the man said, putting his hands on the wheel as if to prepare to drive.

"Sure, but..." Felix glanced over the other's appearance. "Please take that mask off, I'm letting you do this but I have no idea who you even are."

In all honesty, the only reason he even had the confidence to request it was due to the way he was nearly pissing himself in fear for trusting someone completely anonymous like this.

"Yeah, I figured you'd ask that," the stranger said, reaching up and pulling the hood of his hoodie down.  
"Once you've seen my face, if I get found by the cops I'm immediately blaming you."

"I understand," Felix responded, watching as the boy removed his navy blue baseball cap and set it aside.

Felix could see the stranger's hair tied up into a small ponytail, which the man proceeded to take out.

He ran a hand through to adjust his long, black hair, which now fell down to frame his face at just below chin length. It was a somewhat surprising hair choice for a guy, but it honestly looked rather nice.

"I haven't cut it in a while, don't mind it," the stranger apologized for some reason, adjusting his bangs in the car mirror as to make himself look more decent.

"No, no... it's nice, actually," Felix tried to reassure him, watching as the stranger finally set about to taking off his mask.

The other gently grabbed the black mask from one side, pulling it off of one ear and across as to remove it from his face. He shoved it in a side pocket as he turned to look at Felix.

"I did it. Happy?" he asked, not noticing the way Felix was staring at him in complete silence.

If Felix had to rank the top most beautiful people he'd ever seen in his life, the list would have gone something like this:

1\. His best friend, Chan

2\. His best friend, Jisung

3\. That one hot guy in his math class, Seo Changbin  
  


But now, looking at this guy? He easily could claim top spot of the whole list without even trying.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks," Felix responded nervously, sitting back in his chair as the scarily pretty stranger turned the car on.

The boy gave him a light smile and a thumbs up, before shifting the car into drive and setting forward onto the road.

Felix immediately regretted agreeing to this. Not because of the danger of being driven by some random guy, or the fear of being stabbed... but purely because fuck, this guy genuinely looked like a model.

Yet Felix stayed quiet as they sped down the darkened street, knowing that he had to stick with this decision.


	4. 04

The radio played softly, and Felix lightly sipped on a slushie purchased from a drive through restaurant.

A gorgeous stranger sat in the seat next to him, the one who had purchased the drink, along with a baggie of fries (as promised) which sat in between the two.

They were currently stopped in a parking lot, having gotten the food only a couple minute prior.

The long haired boy took and ate a fry, switching through radio stations to lessen the silence of the car.

"So, Felix," the stranger spoke, saying the other boy's name for the first time.

Felix's attention was piqued instantly at this.

"Yeah?" he questioned, finding it rather startling to hear his name come out of the boy's mouth.

"Are you like... in high school? Or what?" he questioned, leaning back against the headrest as he took a sip of his own drink.

Felix nodded. "Yeah! Or, well, I was anyway. I haven't been since I left home."

The other hummed in response.

"I dropped out. I'll go to college when I'm old enough and stable," he explained, Felix listening intently.

"I'm still stressed over missing schoolwork, even though I know I won't be going back," Felix commented, lightly laughing at himself.

"Oh god, right?" the other boy agreed. "It took me months to stop having nightmares about missing essays and shit."

"Why'd you even run away?" Felix asked lightheartedly, genuinely interested in the reason.

The stranger pursed his lips.

"If I told you, you'd probably think I'm crazy."

"Oh, come on," Felix urged him.   
"Try me."

The stranger crossed his legs, before speaking hesitantly.  
"I think my family is trying to kill me."

Felix blinked. "Huh?"

"Yeah, see? I told you it sounds crazy," the stranger sighed, taking a couple more fries and popping them into his mouth.   
"But I swear to god, they are."

"Why... what makes you say that?" Felix stuttered out, surprised at the whole notion of it.

"I was constantly sick for like a whole month and didn't know why," the boy elaborated. "So I stopped eating anything my parents gave me, and suddenly I was fine?"

"Hm," Felix agreed. "Yeah, that's weird. But like, why would they even want to do that?"

"I dunno. All I know is that they were doing it," the boy continued. "And now that I'm gone, they've even sent private detectives after my ass."

Felix silently took another sip of his drink as he thought about the situation. Thankfully his family was nothing like that. He didn't even think his parents could afford private detectives.

"Ah, shit, here comes some police patrol car," the stranger spoke as he saw a vehicle pull into the parking lot they were in.

"I'm not in the mood to deal with that, let's go."

Felix almost questioned it, momentarily forgetting the fact that the two of them were technically fugitives.

Within a moment they were driving out of the parking lot, Felix still calmly eating his fries as he looked out the window.

"Where have you been staying? I'll drop you off," the stranger spoke up after a minute, eyes focused on the road as he was driving.

Felix hesitated.

"Um. Nowhere, really. I don't have a place to go..."

The boy glanced at him, giving him somewhat of a confused look. "Not even a shelter? Where have you been sleeping?"

"You know," Felix almost cringed at the memories as he stated it. "Park benches... grass..."

The pretty stranger ran a hand through his hair, his expression darkening as if he were contemplating something.

"Fine," he decided, reaching over to turn down the cold air conditioning of the car.

"You're coming with me, then."

"What?" Felix questioned as the vehicle picked up speed, the driver changing lanes as he mentally mapped out his destination.

"You mean, like—"

"My place, yeah. At the motel," the other replied. "We've already exchanged secrets, it's not like this could make it worse for either of us."

"I don't even know your name..." Felix spoke quietly, causing the driver to go silent for a moment.

"Hyunjin," the boy answered. "That's my name."

Hyunjin. Why did that name sound so familiar?

Felix leaned his head against the car door, watching the spacing between tall buildings become more distant as they traveled towards the city limits. Cement pavements gave way to tall grass and trees as the bright city life was left far behind them.

Felix glanced over at the stranger, Hyunjin, who drove silently, occasionally checking the car's gas level or adjusting the radio station.

"Is the motel that far?" Felix asked briefly, sensing that they'd been driving for a good while now.

"Yeah. You think I could find one cheap enough to pay for within the city?" Hyunjin responded, monotone.

The boy only shook his head in response, taking a sip of his now near-empty drink. He hadn't really been thinking about it, to be honest. This Hyunjin guy seemed like way better of a planner than he was.

  
After a short while, the view of a small building came into view. The car turned off the road and into the parking area up front, fitting into a spot near the entrance.

"Alright, we're here," Hyunjin announced, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car as soon as he'd swung his door open.

The other boy followed suit, his backpack swung over his shoulder and hands full of bags of snacks.

Felix couldn't help but feel way out of his element here. The taller boy walked towards the doors with a comfortable gait, showing he'd been here many times.

Felix, however, couldn't help but nervously scan over the whole area, the dimly lit motel's signboard grabbing his attention.

"Um... how much does this place cost exactly?" Felix questioned, the whole area looking kinda sketchy. He subconsciously walked rather closely behind the taller boy, who held a room key between his fingers.

"Twenty dollars a night," Hyunjin replied as he swung open the door to the lobby, gesturing Felix inside before him.

The sight of a receptionist asleep at the front desk made Felix softly smile. He definitely related to the tiredness... he doubted he'd gotten a decent night of sleep all week.

The two padded down the halls to a room far from the lobby. Hyunjin stuck the keycard in the door as to unlock it, although it took a couple of hard shoves to push it open.

"Well. Here you go," he stepped into the dark room, switching the light on as Felix walked in behind him.

The room was rather small, as expected of a $20 per night motel. And yet, it was absolutely riddled with signs of being lived in.

Piles of snacks laid on the counters of the kitchenette, among various utensils and dishes. On the nearby table, pencils and paper laid scattered alongside what appeared to be a stack of novels, all bookmarked in different places.

"Sorry, I'm messy as fuck," Hyunjin's quick apology grabbed the attention of Felix, who had apparently been standing and staring at the various objects strewn about the room.

"No, no, it's fine," Felix tried to reassure him, awkwardly setting his bag down near the entrance.

Hyunjin wandered across the room towards the bathroom, flicking on the light switch.

"If you wanna take a shower or something, there's shampoo above the sink," he commented, gesturing inside.

"It's probably a good idea if you've been sleeping outside for a week. Just saying."

Felix felt slightly embarrassed at this.

"Yeah..." he agreed, following the other towards the bathroom. "You're right. About the clothes though..."

Hyunjin gave him a look as he sat down at a chair near the kitchen.

"You don't have any extras?" he inquired.

"No, I do, it's just that I've worn everything by now," Felix explained.

Hyunjin stared at the boy for a moment, before letting out a short sigh.

"God, okay..." he started. "Right, I can take your shit downstairs to the laundry if you want. I have a few sweatshirts in the wardrobe."

"Sure... thank you," the shorter boy responded, feeling halfway grateful for the other's offer, and halfway guilty for needing so much help.

"It's nothing," Hyunjin responded as he knelt down next to Felix's backpack, unzipping it as to search for his clothing items.

Deciding to place a lot of trust in the stranger at the moment, Felix stopped watching and shut the door to the bathroom, finding himself once again alone.

As he stood in front of the mirror, he couldn't help but blanch at his own appearance.

He'd honestly never seen himself look so downtrodden. It was clear that he was overwhelmingly exhausted, and his dark hair was messy and all over the place.

Hyunjin had definitely been right in suggesting that he take a shower immediately.

Quickly, he turned the water of the shower on, letting it heat up as he carefully undressed.

This would probably be the most relaxed he'd been in a while.


	5. 05

The sound of a microwave beeping pierced through the silent room, waking up a small boy who had been fast asleep on the couch.  
  


"God..." Felix groaned as his consciousness came to him, still groggy from sleep. He struggled to turn over and open his eyes, wondering what the noise was that had woken him up.

He took in the blurry view of a tall figure standing near the microwave of the kitchenette, opening it and taking out something in a small bowl.

 _Right_.

Felix had been staying at this motel room for about three days now, as its owner, Hyunjin, was kind enough to offer the other boy his couch to sleep on.

Naturally Felix was incredibly grateful for the roof over his head, and although the taller boy was somewhat reserved, he certainly wasn't bad company at all.

"Hyunjin..." Felix mumbled as he sat up, yawning. "What is that...?"

"Instant rice," the boy in the kitchen called back, his dark hair pinned back and out of his face with bobby-pins.

He padded across the room with the bowl and a spoon, taking a seat on the couch next to the sleepy younger boy. Felix, barely sitting upright with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders, didn't have the energy in him yet to ask for any food.

Hyunjin silently ate his microwaved rice— which Felix doubted could be very good in the first place— and reached for the television remote, turning the old motel TV on with the press of a button.

"What time is it?" Felix asked, closing his eyes again as he leaned back against the couch.

"It's like 9:00 AM," Hyunjin answered as he flicked through the different television channels. "You can go back to sleep if you want. It's still early."

"You're sitting on my couch," Felix responded in a tired monotone.

Hyunjin completely ignored this comment, continuing to enjoy his food without a word.

He finally settled on some animal themed channel, which was playing some program akin to a dog show.

" _The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is the largest of the toy dog breeds_..." some announcer spoke from the television, an older sounding man with a strong British accent.

Felix opened his eyes to peek at the screen, suddenly interested. A cute little brown and white dog pranced around on camera, its owner praising it.

He subconsciously smiled. The little creature looked exactly like his best friend Chan's dog, a tiny spaniel named Berry.

Hyunjin took notice of the little grin on Felix's face.

"You like dogs?" he inquired, chewing on a spoonful of rice as he watched the younger.

Felix kept his eyes on the screen as he responded.  
"Yeah, who doesn't like them?"

"True," Hyunjin nodded, watching the show as well. Another breed walked on screen, with information on the pup being displayed.

"I miss mine a lot," Hyunjin admitted rather quietly, poking at his food with the spoon.

This grabbed Felix's attention, and he looked over at Hyunjin questioningly."You have a dog?" 

Hyunjin nodded enthusiastically, setting his bowl of rice on the coffee table in front of him and standing up.

"I have pictures, wait," he said, prancing over to grab his wallet and sift through it.

Felix watched, amused, as Hyunjin pulled out a few small photographs before dashing back over to the couch.

"This is my baby," he said as he handed the pictures one by one to Felix, who took them gingerly. Felix only smiled as he flipped through the images of a long haired chihuahua, a puppy looking one that couldn't have weighed over ten pounds.

"His name's Kkami," Hyunjin informed happily.

"Cuteee," Felix cooed at the images. One caught his eye, in which a boy with short black hair held the dog in his arms, giving it a small kiss on the nose.

"Is this you?" he questioned, turning towards Hyunjin.

Hyunjin nodded.

"Yeah. That picture's from a couple years ago."

Felix pursed his lips, that strange feeling that something was familiar about the photo popping up again. Hyunjin did look incredibly different without his current chin length hair, not to mention he had been younger then. Perhaps Felix was just too used to his regular appearance?

He handed the photos back to Hyunjin once he had looked over them enough.

"Why didn't you bring him with you?" Felix questioned, referring to the dog.

Hyunjin only rolled his eyes as he put the photos down on the table."You think I could afford to feed and take care of a whole dog while on the run?"

"He's the size of a rat, Hyunjin. How hard could it be?"

Hyunjin faked a gasp.

"You did _not_ just compare him to a _rat_ ," he spoke in a mock offense, holding a hand up to his chest.

"You're right, that was uncalled for," Felix apologized despite the smile on his face."But my point is still true. He's tiny."

" _You're_ tiny too, and you managed to waste $200 within seven days," Hyunjin shot back with a tone that sounded like it should have been accompanied by a sassy sip from a teacup.

"I—" Felix gaped at him, unable to come up with a snappy comeback as he watched a smug smile wash over the other boy's face.

Hyunjin only shook his head, standing up and wandering back over to the kitchen in search of more food.

Felix stood up as well, struggling with the heavy blanket still wrapped around him.

"I'm not tiny," he argued, waddling over to the kitchen with as much of a threatening look as an angry duckling.

Hyunjin raised his eyebrows as if to say " _yeah,_ _right,_ " and poured himself a glass of water.

"Do this real quick," the elder said after taking a sip from the glass. He held up his right hand, palm facing outward.

Felix, confused, went along with it anyway, and held up his hand, palm facing towards the other.

Hyunjin placed his hand flat against Felix's much smaller one, and as to prove his point, curled his fingertips over the top of the boy's hands.

"' _Not_ _tiny_ ' my ass," Hyunjin mocked before he pulled his hand back, leaving Felix frozen in surprise next to him.

"By the way, I've gotta go out today and get some gas for my car," the taller kept talking, tapping his fingers against the counter.

Felix struggled to come up with a response to this.  
"Um, okay. Good luck?"

The long haired boy only gave a sweet laugh at this.

"Do you wanna come with? You haven't left the place since you got here," Hyunjin offered as he grabbed his car keys from the counter.

"Sure..." Felix answered.

As usual, Hyunjin's advice seemed right: it wouldn't hurt to get out every once and awhile.

"Right then, come on, we might as well go now," Hyunjin gestured as he downed the last of his water, before striding over towards the door.

Felix quickly came to his senses and threw the blanket back on his couch, adjusting his messy hair slightly on the way to the door.

He had a creeping feeling that this was becoming the new normal for him.


	6. 06

The walls of a bedroom were filled with hushed sounds, words of comfort being whispered every so often.

In a certain small house near the downtown of the city, a boy laid on a large mattress in his dimly lit bedroom.

"Don't worry. It's gonna be okay," came the soft words from another nearby.

A boy with a sort of pale orange hair knelt down next to the mattress, gazing down at his best friend with a mix of sympathy and sadness.

All he could see from his point of view was the other boy's back. His best friend's dark, curly hair naturally obscured his face from view, but anyone with two eyes and a brain could understand what the low, hiccuping sounds coming from the boy meant.

"Channie, please..." the orange haired boy placed a hand on his best friend's shoulder.

"It'll all be fine. I promise you."

"How can you promise that, Ji?" came the stressed response from the older boy, whose hoodie sleeves had slowly become damp with the presence of warm tears.

"Well..." the orange haired boy, Jisung, couldn't even finish the sentence. He couldn't promise anything, and they both knew it.

All he could do was try to comfort his best friend, for now.

Jisung crawled onto the mattress towards the weeping boy, and took a seat next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders securely.

"He's strong, yeah? Have some faith in him," Jisung squeezed the curly haired boy gently as he attempted to motivate him.

Radio silence.  
A small teardrop fell down onto the mattress.

"Come on, Chan! You'll just feel worse if you keep dwelling on it," Jisung attempted a different approach.

Chan turned only to send Jisung a pained look.

"I can't not dwell on it. What if something happened to him?"

"Felix is smart, Channie. He's— he's probably completely fine!" Jisung insisted, becoming a little panicked as he saw his best friend's sobbing begin to get worse than it had been.

"How can you be so sure? He... he didn't even say goodbye to me, or..." Chan rambled, stuttering out his words with uneven breathing. "There was no note—"

"Chan," Jisung cut him off. "It's fine. Chances are he's okay..."

"Stop saying it's fine!" Chan ranted back at him. "All... all you do is say _it's fine,_ _it's fine_. It's not! Tell me where he is if it's fine!"

"Chris..." Jisung could only say his name in return, the elder's stress getting to him. He'd never seen him act like this before, and it was, to be honest, terrifying.

The dark haired boy only let out a ragged breath, trying to calm himself down as he buried his face in his hands.

"Do you think it's our fault?"  
Chan mumbled, voice muffled by his sleeves.

"No...!" Jisung answered with an air of hesitance that wasn't all too comforting. "It couldn't be. Remember, the day before he... left... wasn't he extra clingy?"

"But why else would he leave? I don't understand... if his family's fine, we're fine, his grades were fine..."

"Chan, I think you should stop thinking about it," Jisung suggested, lightly rubbing his friend's back.

"He wouldn't want you stressing out over this. I know how much he means to you, but..."

Chan gently shoved Jisung's arm away from him, standing up from where he'd been sitting.

"I just need a minute. I'll be back," he spoke as he padded across the room towards his bathroom.

He stepped inside, slamming the door shut, leaving Jisung alone in his bedroom.

Jisung could only sigh at this. He wasn't sure what he would do if things continued on in this way, but god knew he would keep trying to cheer Chan up.

Meanwhile, a dozen or so miles across town, two different boys sat on a couch, the energy of this room completely different.

"Go, go!" the one with long hair chanted enthusiastically.

The smaller boy next to him held up a wad of paper, aiming carefully before throwing it hard across the room.

The paper ball hit the motel room's wall, bounced off, and landed perfectly into a trash can placed below it.

"Shittt, good aim!" Hyunjin commented as Felix gave him a little high five in celebration.

"Watch, I'm gonna get it into the sink," he continued speaking, taking another crumpled up ball of paper and turning to look that way.

"There's no way," Felix said in disbelief as the boy next to him squinted at his target across the room, a good distance farther than the trash can had been from the couch.

" _Bet_ ," was all Hyunjin said before absolutely hurling the ball towards the kitchen.

Much to Felix's amazement, it hit the faucet head on, and ricocheted directly into the basin of the sink.

"Holy..." Felix muttered as it landed, now only hearing Hyunjin's excited cheering next to him.

"Ah, god," Hyunjin took a breath, leaning back against the couch.   
"I forgot we're gonna have to clean this."

Paper balls could be seen scattered across the room everywhere; on furniture, tossed about the floor, and even stuck on top of the lamps.

This little game of theirs had been going on for a good length of time now, having been originally sparked by Felix absentmindedly tossing an item into the trash from where he sat, and soon evolving into a competition.

"I mean," Felix argued. "Technically we don't have to clean it."

Hyunjin turned to look at him for a moment.   
"Bad influence," he scoffed playfully, seeing Felix smile at the comment.

If Felix was being honest... Hyunjin was actually really fun to be around.

After living with the boy for a few days now, Felix felt like Hyunjin was slowly opening up a little more to him. Of course, they didn't know each other particularly well yet, but the older boy was more than just tolerable... he seemed like exactly the type of person Felix would've befriended had he known him in school.

Speaking of Hyunjin, the long haired boy now seemed to be glancing around the room, as if searching for something.

"Lix, did you see where my hair tie landed earlier?" he asked. Just as implied, Hyunjin had, in fact, taken down his ponytail tie earlier during their game, and fired it off like a projectile in some random direction.

"No. Don't you have any others?" Felix asked, not wanting to stand up.

"Yeah, but I don't wanna have to steal more if I keep losing them," Hyunjin commented, making Felix crack up in laughter.

Right. As nice as Hyunjin was, he was also still technically a criminal.

The pair sat in silence for a second, the smiles staying on their faces despite the lack of conversation.

"So how's ' _War and Peace_ ' going?" Felix asked after a second.

"Oh, _horribly_ ," Hyunjin responded. "Not that it's a bad story, I just can't remember anyone's names," he lamented, showing how hard he was struggling with the novel.

Felix had discovered within 24 hours of meeting Hyunjin that the stack of novels in his room was not simply a decoration. Apparently, with a lack of internet or anything else to do, the older boy had gotten really into... classic literature.

"Maybe draw a chart of names and relationships?"

"Like what, a study guide? No thanks, I did enough of that in school," Hyunjin immediately declined.

Felix just giggled at his behavior, before slowly standing up and padding over to the bedside table where a stack of hair ties sat.   
"You still have five left," he counted.

"Bring me one," Hyunjin leaned over the back of the couch, watching Felix pick one up and look at it.

Felix jokingly turned and aimed it at Hyunjin, stretched back, and pretended to fire it directly at him.

Hyunjin, dramatic as ever, clutched a hand to his chest as if he'd been shot, and fell over back onto the couch.

"God, you..." Felix mumbled in amusement as he walked back to the couch with the hair tie in hand.

The other boy sat up and took the hair tie from him, lightly thanking him. Felix plopped down next to him, watching for a moment as the boy gathered his fluffy dark hair in his hands, pulling it back as to prepare to put it up.

At the sight of it... Felix couldn't help but remember many happy memories from the past years.

His lovely best friend, Chan, had a gorgeous head of dark brown curls that Felix always loved to mess around with. In all honesty, it was amazing that poor Chan never got annoyed with the constant braiding, playing, twisting, and hair tying under the wrath of Felix's little hands.

Hyunjin caught his gaze, noticing Felix a little spaced out.   
"You okay?" he questioned as he pulled the hair tie off his wrist.

Felix only stared at him for a second.

"Um, yeah," he said, despite the way his hands were absolutely itching to fulfill their purpose of hair-playing. There was no way he could ask Hyunjin to let him do that... right? Wouldn't it be weird?

"Do you, um, need any help with that?" Felix asked, trying to position himself as seeming helpful rather than clingy.

Hyunjin gave him a weird look.

"Help with what...? It's a ponytail."

"Ah, no," Felix shrank back a little in embarrassment. "It's nothing. I'm just good at doing people's hair... it's a habit."

The older boy broke out into a sort of warm, amused smile.   
"If you wanna braid it or something, be my guest," he said, handing the hair tie over to Felix.

"Really?" Felix almost squeaked, both surprised and nervous at the sudden invitation.

Hyunjin turned to face away from the smaller, sitting cross legged on the couch as he waited without a word. Felix was naturally a bit nervous at this, and took a moment to gather his composure before reaching up to lightly touch Hyunjin's hair.

It was about as soft as he'd expected, and Felix was honestly kind of jealous of it. He gently gathered Hyunjin's dark hair back into his hands, separating it into three sections while lightly humming some song to himself.

"You know, Felix," Hyunjin began to chat as the boy worked on his hair, "I've been thinking about where I'll go after this."

"Mhm...?" Felix hummed in understanding, more focused on calmly braiding together Hyunjin's hair than replying.

"I think I've stayed near the city too long. It's easier to hide where no one would be looking for me, right?" Hyunjin continued speaking.

"True. Somewhere like... Busan, or Jeju Island, would be better," Felix agreed. "But... how soon are you gonna leave?"

Hyunjin paused for a moment at this.

"Maybe like a week or two from now. I wanna get a job so I don't run out of money, and I can't do that here."

Felix pursed his lips at this, a little dejected at the idea of the older boy leaving so soon. 

"Hah, yeah, good plan," he said despite the twinge of negativity. "Um, I hope that works out for you. As for me... I have no idea how I can get money."

Hyunjin lightly laughed.  
"We won't need very much. The only thing I pay for is this damn hotel, remember?"

Felix began to nod, but mentally stumbled over a certain word.

"We?" he mumbled as he fastened the hair tie at the end of Hyunjin's now-braided hair.

Hyunjin reached back and lightly felt the braid.   
"Yeah...? What, you think I'd just leave you here?" he replied, turning back to look at Felix.

"Oh! N-no, I didn't..." Felix stuttered out, not expecting this change of direction. "I just, um... thank you," he spoke quietly.

Hyunjin reached up to gently ruffle Felix's hair.   
"Of course," he said, grinning as Felix closed his eyes at the action.

"Besides, Lix," the elder reasoned. "Think about it. We ran way at completely different times. They'd never suspect we were connected in any way at all, right?"

Felix nodded at this, thinking it sounded reasonable.

"So, us traveling together helps. They're looking for us separately, so I keep you from getting caught, and you keep me from getting caught. Right?" he planned it out.

"Right," Felix agreed, not totally listening to the boy's logic. He would honestly take any excuse to not have to be alone again.

Hyunjin laid back against the couch, satisfied with the way his hair had been done.

"I think I'm gonna go to the bathroom," he said, begrudgingly standing up after a moment.   
"I'll be back in a sec."

Felix nodded in understanding, watching the elder stride across the room away from him.

To be quite honest, this cozy little motel room was beginning to feel a tiny bit like home.


	7. 07

Soft sounds of turning pages were all that filled the room, alongside the distant rush of water.

Hyunjin sat alone on the couch of his motel room, trying to knock out yet another chapter of "War and Peace" despite barely keeping up with the plot at this point.

His newfound roommate, Felix, was currently taking a shower in the bathroom, and had been doing so for the last twenty minutes. Hyunjin only hoped he wouldn't waste all of the hot water, as the motel's heating system was admittedly not the best.

A knock came at the door to the room, making Hyunjin glance up. He knew he hadn't called for room service or anything of the sort, and thus he decided it best to simply call back, asking who it was.

"Who's there?" Hyunjin shouted out, not particularly concerned.

" _Seoul police department_ ," a man's voice called back through the door. "May we have a word?"

Hyunjin's whole body went cold at this. Why the hell would the police be here? Surely there was no way that they'd managed to track him down?

Glancing around for an escape route and finding none, Hyunjin realized that his only option was to actually answer the door. As idiotic as he felt doing it... he knew that waiting for them to leave would only be more suspicious.

After striding over to the door, he swung it open, coming face to face with a pair of police officers: one man, middle aged, a bit stout, and a younger woman by his side.

"Evening sir," the male officer gave Hyunjin a smile, hands in his pockets. Hyunjin liked this stance. The officer's body language was relaxed... telling the nervous boy that he was in a good mood.

"We've heard reports that a missing boy was spotted in this area so we're just doing a checkup," the cop continued explaining, fishing a poster out of his pocket.

Never mind what he'd been thinking earlier. Hyunjin suddenly did not like this situation at all.

The officer held up the flyer in front of Hyunjin, who almost stiffened a bit as he scanned over the details.

" _Lee Felix... high schooler... gone for two weeks..._ " he mumbled as he read off of the poster, glancing briefly at the picture below. A boy with messy brown hair and a sweet smile graced the paper... one who looked all too familiar to Hyunjin.

"Sorry," Hyunjin completely lied, his voice calm despite being so terrified that he was surprised he wasn't currently pissing his own pants.

"I've seen the posters around, but nothing besides that."

The cop nodded, seemingly believing this answer rather easily.

"Sorry to take up your time, but we have to check every lead," the cop apologized with a warm smile. "You know how it is."

"Oh, yeah, of course," Hyunjin gave a fake smile back, absolutely itching for the officer to leave already.

At that moment, the soft click of a lock resounded.

Despite being almost unnoticeable, to Hyunjin, it was as if an alarm bell had been set off.

Hyunjin whipped around to see the door to the bathroom begin to open, and he felt his heart _drop_ at the sight.

" _Ah!_ " he spoke up, calling towards the bathroom. "Honey...! Before you get out of the shower, make sure you leave your dirty clothes on the counter!" he shouted out the first thing he thought of.

He immediately turned back to the officer at the doorway, who seemed to be watching with curiosity.

"Sorry," Hyunjin pulled a story out of nowhere, "My girlfriend and I are here for our first anniversary."

The cop gave him a knowing smile, gesturing that the boy need not worry.  
"I understand, I was your age once," he responded. "We've all been there."

"Anyway," he spoke after a moment, glancing around the room briefly. "Apologies for the intrusion, have a good night," the officer then continued, tipping his hat kindly towards Hyunjin before turning and walking off down the hallway, satisfied with what he'd seen.

Hyunjin watched the pair leave, keeping a straight face. As soon as the officers rounded the corner and were out of sight... 

He slammed the door shut, locking it and leaning against it shakily.

Holy shit. He couldn't believe how badly that situation could've went.

Felix popped his head around the door frame, staring at the other boy in confusion.

"Who the hell was that?" Felix asked quietly, seeing the elder's mortified face.

"The fucking cops, Lix!" Hyunjin hissed back. "They're looking for you!"

"For _me?_ " Felix pointed at himself with surprise, as if he shouldn't have already been expecting it

Hyunjin gave no response to this, instead hurrying over to the table and gathering all of his books in a pile.

"What are you doing...?" Felix asked, stepping out of the bathroom timidly and watching the other boy gather up all of his belongings.

"Start packing your shit," Hyunjin borderline snapped at him. "We're leaving tonight. I'm not taking any chances."

Felix flinched slightly at this, not used to the boy's cold attitude. Yet he understood the urgency, and although reluctant, he slowly began to gather up all his clothes and shove them into his backpack.

"Where are we going?" Felix dared to ask as Hyunjin shoved all of his snacks from the kitchen into a bag.

"Somewhere. I don't fucking know, I was still planning before _this_ shit happened," the elder replied, exasperated.

Felix couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty.

"I'm sorry..." he mumbled, seeing the stress on the boy's face. "I can leave if you want...? Then you'll be safe..."

Hyunjin turned, staring at him for a good few seconds before letting out a breath.

He padded over to Felix, placing a hand on the shorter boy's shoulder.

"No, no," he sighed. "It's not your fault. I'm just... anxious, okay?" Hyunjin squeezed his shoulder in a slight reassurance.

Felix nodded in understanding, and Hyunjin quickly went back to packing his things.

Within an hour, Hyunjin and Felix had basically emptied and cleaned out the whole motel room. It was now void of any personality... cold, and unwelcoming, unlike the way it had been upon Felix's first arrival. Needless to say, he didn't like this change very much.

"Should we double check that we got everything?" Felix suggested, seeing Hyunjin shake his head.

"We already double checked."

" _Triple_ check, then?" Felix tried.

Hyunjin let out a soft laugh. "No, Lix, this is probably good enough. You got your bag?" he asked, Felix holding the item up in response.

The long haired boy glanced down at his own items... a rolling suitcase and a backpack's worth of stuff shoved into them.

"I think we're good to go then. I'll go out first, make sure the coast is clear," Hyunjin gave a mock salute as he walked towards the door.

"Good luck," Felix threw out cheerfully. "Don't die!"

"I'll try not to!" Hyunjin joked back as he slipped out of the room and into the hallway.

Silence filled the room.

Felix couldn't remember a time when he'd felt this antsy since the night he'd ran away. And before that...? He had no idea when he'd ever been this on edge.

Perhaps it was in sixth grade, when he'd almost gotten lost in the woods? Or a few years later, when he'd realized he had a crush on his best friend, Chan—

No, he didn't want to think about that embarrassing period of his life right now. It was long over anyway, and while Felix no longer felt that kind of way about his best friend, it was still incredibly awkward to remember.

The door swung open, and Hyunjin leaned into the room, snapping as a gesture for Felix to hurry up and come with him.

Felix did so, eager to escape his messy thoughts. He turned off the lights to the room before shutting the door behind them, stepping out into the hallway next to Hyunjin.

"I already put my stuff in the car. The cops left," Hyunjin spoke with a low voice as they hurried down the hall towards the exit.

Thankfully there was no one at the reception desk near the entrance, and thus no witnesses to them leaving.

The two made their way across the parking lot and reached Hyunjin's car, which said boy quickly unlocked and fired up with his key.

Felix dumped his bag in the back, before climbing into the passenger seat up front next to the driver.

"You okay, Lix?" Hyunjin asked as he backed the car out of the parking space rather hurriedly, not wanting to waste a single second of their time.

Felix took a deep breath.   
"Yeah. Why?" he questioned, his voice wavering as he spoke.

"First time running from the cops?" Hyunjin grinned at the boy as he swerved out of the parking lot and onto the road, switching on the radio.

"Obviously," Felix replied in a daze, gazing back at the motel they'd just left through the window, as if longing to go back.

Words didn't seem to be able to encapsulate the emotion that the he felt at the moment. Relief? Fear?  
Regardless of what it was, he sat without a word, staring at the road in front of them.

"Felix," the elder spoke out of the blue.

"Y-yeah?" Felix responded, a little startled at the use of his full first name. He hadn't even realized that he'd gotten used to the nickname in the first place.

"Gimme your hand," Hyunjin demanded.

Felix blinked, taking a moment to process the request. He put out his left hand towards the arm rest in between them, and almost jumped as Hyunjin quickly grabbed ahold of it with his right.

Hyunjin firmly interlocked their fingers, and gave Felix's hand a little squeeze.

"It's okay," Hyunjin said, not looking at Felix as he spoke. "We'll find a place in another city easily. We have each other now, right?"

Felix gave a tiny nod at this. "Right," he agreed, lightly squeezing Hyunjin's hand back.

Through the windows came the light of the golden, setting sun, and Hyunjin's dark hair and eyes seemed to shine with a beautiful hue of amber. Perhaps it was a bit overdramatic to say, but Felix swore that the boy carried himself with all the grace and energy of a god... a higher being that one almost felt unworthy to touch.

"Could you turn up the volume on the radio?" Hyunjin asked, snapping Felix out of his thoughts.

Felix silently obeyed, using his free hand to crank up the knob on the car. The music came through the old speakers loud and clear now.

"Ooh, shit! I love this song!" Hyunjin turned to glance at Felix with an excited grin, lightly shaking their intertwined hands.

Felix couldn't help but smile back as he saw the driver turn up the volume even louder.

Perhaps this whole running away thing wouldn't be so bad after all.


	8. 08

Felix honestly was about to go insane if he heard yet another Got7 song play through the radio.

He and Hyunjin had been on the road for a couple hours now, the radio on full blast the whole time. While he had nothing against the group, there was only so many times he was willing to listen to " _Just Right_ " over and over again before he'd had enough.

Not to mention, Hyunjin had been enthusiastically rapping alongside it every single time from the driver's seat.

"Hey," Felix spoke up as he spotted what appeared to be a gas station in the distance. "Can we stop there? I wanna buy a drink."

Hyunjin nodded in reply, switching lanes on the highway in advance.   
"Yeah, good idea. I kinda need to use the bathroom anyway."

By now, the sun had gone down ages prior. As the pair drove towards the bright building, the parking lot in front was a contrasting empty and dark.

Felix was already unbuckling his seatbelt by the time Hyunjin pulled the car up near the door, shifting it into park.

"You can go in first, I might get some gas," he gestured for Felix to leave.

The boy gave a quick nod before eagerly doing as told, hopping out of the car and scurrying over towards the store's entrance.

It had been a while since he'd been in a convenience store like this. Normally, while he was staying at the motel, Hyunjin would disappear for a few hours and then return bearing new food... essentially eliminating any need for Felix to go to the store.

However, now, Felix eagerly looked around. He had around $50 which Hyunjin had so kindly given him beforehand, but still felt like a giddy schoolgirl having to choose one item in a candy shop.

An older woman sat at the cash register, paying no attention to Felix whatsoever as she worked on what looked like a crossword puzzle.

So, the boy danced around the store, deciding to pretend as if he was on a fun road trip with his family and letting himself indulge a little. He grabbed an iced coffee from the store's machine, alongside a donut and a couple of other sweets that couldn't have had any nutritional value whatsoever.

As he was digging out the cash and giving the items to the cashier, the bells on the door chimed, signaling someone had walked in.

Felix turned around as the cashier rung up his items, seeing Hyunjin lingering at the door. Upon making eye contact with Felix, he gave a small grin, wandering over towards him in curiosity.

"You're using my money for _that_?" he questioned lightheartedly, seeing Felix smile sheepishly in response.

"Yes," Felix confirmed without hesitation. "Why, you don't like my diet?"

" _Dork_ ," Hyunjin muttered. He rolled his eyes in amusement, grabbing the iced coffee Felix had just bought and walking off with it towards the door.

"Huh...?" Felix said as he finished shoving the coins back in his pocket.

"Hey— wait!"

Felix hurried after the elder boy who was walking out the door of the store, taking a sip out of the coffee.

"Thief!" Felix scolded as he caught up to the elder, snatching his drink back.

Hyunjin only laughed at this, watching the other boy clutch his coffee close to himself.

He gently nudged Felix's shoulder, pointing towards the front of the store.

"Look at us over there," he said, pointing at a couple of posters plastered against the brick wall.

Felix squinted, just able to make out the titles of two missing persons posters. His eyes widened as he recognized himself on one of them.

"Wow..." he trailed off, the feeling of what he'd done beginning to fully sink in. He knew he was being looked for, but for some reason, the sight of a poster for the first time really made the feeling hit home.

Next to his was stapled a rather familiar poster, one he'd seen hundreds of times. The exact same one that he'd been staring at a week ago in another store.

This was the poster of that missing kid; some short black haired, glasses wearing teen with the last name of Hwang. 

Felix's brain seemed to halt at this. He carefully read over the details on the poster, feeling as if he was missing something very important. Yet as his eyes landed on the boy's full name, it felt like his world came to a screeching halt.

Hwang _Hyunjin_.   
Holy shit. How could he be so stupid?

Felix glanced at the tall boy who stood next to him, wondering how on earth he'd never made this connection before. The Hyunjin he knew now had long, gorgeous hair, wore no glasses, and apparently had lost his bangs a while ago. Felix felt incredibly dumb. Of course his appearance would chance over the span of a year.

Hyunjin seemed to notice the contemplative look on Felix's face, and gently asked him what was wrong.

"Oh, nothing," Felix responded as if his whole worldview wasn't crumbling.   
"Just thinking that you look really different in that picture."

Hyunjin snickered at this.

"Yeah, it's a good thing. Besides, I like my hair better long anyway!" he said, dramatically flipping back some of his dark locks.

"It suits you," Felix complimented absentmindedly, making eye contact with the elder for a second. A small grin painted itself onto Hyunjin's face.

"Thanks," he mumbled, before turning and walking back in the direction of his car. Felix hurried to follow him, not wanting to trail too far behind.

"You know, Felix," the boy commented as they both climbed into the vehicle. "You might wanna change your appearance too, considering they've got cops out for you."

Felix pursed his lips, thinking over this suggestion as he locked the car door. In the poster, he looked rather average... he had dark hair, dark eyes, fair skin...

"Oh," he said, a thought popping into his mind. "Do you have any baby wipes? Or napkins?"

"Umm, I think so?" Hyunjin raised an eyebrow, before popping open the glove compartment of the car and digging around in it.

"Here," he said as he found a package, handing it off to Felix.

"Promise not to laugh after I do this," Felix warned as he reached up to angle the rearview mirror towards himself.

"Okay...?" was all that came from Hyunjin.

Felix quickly got to work as he pulled a wipe out of its package, bringing it up to rub his cheeks while the elder boy stared in confusion.

After a second or two, he hummed in satisfaction as he saw the color smudge off onto the cloth, a sign that his plan was working.

"You've been wearing makeup?" Hyunjin questioned briefly, but was quickly shushed.

Little dark specks of color began to show themselves as Felix wiped the concealer off of his cheeks, as if happy to be finally shown to the world.

His freckles had always been somewhat of an insecurity to him, as he quite literally didn't know anyone else that had them.   
Therefore he was used to constantly covering them with foundation and the likes, and naturally he'd brought a bottle with him before leaving home.

Felix cleaned the remaining concealer off of his face as much as he could, his freckle dusted cheeks staring back at him in the mirror. He cringed just a tiny bit knowing that they were exposed, but for the sake of anonymity, he guessed it was worth it.

Yet he hesitated to speak as he turned and caught Hyunjin's gaze, who seemed to be staring at him quite openly.

"Yeah, you don't have to point them out," Felix spoke with a hint of embarrassment. "I already know it's weird."

"No!" Hyunjin immediately corrected him, waving his hands back and forth just to emphasize it. "It's not weird... actually I was gonna say they're pretty..."

Felix bit back a smile at this, yet shook his head in denial.   
"It's okay, you don't have to lie about it. I'm fine."

"I would tell you if they were ugly, Felix, trust me," Hyunjin insisted, giving the boy a stern look.   
"They're very cute. Truthfully."

If that didn't remind Felix of his best friend, he didn't know what would. During countless nights he'd spent at Chan's house chatting away, the curly haired boy would always bring up how much he adored Felix's freckled cheeks, and how cute they were.

Felix had never believed him.

"Ahh, be quiet," Felix lightly swatted at Hyunjin's arm, now bashful. "Do you think this is enough to really change my appearance though?"

Hyunjin scanned over his face for a second.  
"Honestly, probably not. I would dye my hair or get glasses if I were you."

Felix sighed at this, sinking back into his seat. There was no way he wanted to get glasses. He'd bought a pair for "fashion"before, and he'd lost them within a week because he was absolutely _the worst_ at keeping track of things.

"Hair dye it is," he thought out loud, a little nervous at the idea. He'd never dyed his hair before. Not that he hadn't thought about it, but he always had figured his parents would say no if he asked in the first place.

"We can buy some bleach later," Hyunjin spoke as he turned on the car, readying to hit the road once again. "I don't really wanna go back in this store considering they've got posters of us."

"Yeah," Felix agreed. "Smart idea."

As the car started up, a Got7 song came on the radio, and Felix openly groaned at the sound.

"Oh my god, this was one of their best comebacks so far, right?" Hyunjin commented on it, hyped at his favorite group.

Felix only agreed to appease the elder, smiling more at his childish behavior than the song itself.

Maybe this road trip wouldn't be so insufferable after all, he thought.


	9. 09

Han Jisung honestly couldn't have cared less about whatever his teacher was droning on and on about, her voice so dull and monotone that it practically lulled him to sleep.  
  


It was a rather regular school day for the boy, and he was currently sat in his first period lecture, passing the time by doodling all over his own hands and wrists. The only source of entertainment in the class came from watching a pretty boy who sat in the front row, a popular kid who Jisung admittedly had somewhat of a crush on.

Not that he'd ever actually _talked_ to him, but a boy can dream.

He glanced at the desk next to himself, empty as usual. Felix had used to sit there in this class, helping Jisung survive first period with his jokes, banter, and passing notes.

He'd always thought Felix's presence was akin to a cup of coffee in the morning; something to brighten your day and keep you sane despite the mundane work forced upon you.

Now that Felix was gone, an empty void occupied the space instead. Jisung gently laid his hand on the chair next to him, gazing down at the unoccupied seat with a sort of melancholy.

" _Hey... Jisung?_ "

A sweet voice grabbed his attention after a while, and the orange haired boy glanced upwards, wondering who'd called for him.

He found himself frozen in place as he realized that _the_ Lee Minho, most gorgeous boy in the class, was standing in front of his desk, hands in his pockets as he waited for Jisung to respond.

"Um, yeah?" was all Jisung could say. He couldn't help but scan over the other boy's features at first, having never seen his high cheekbones and pretty eyes this close before.

"Sorry about Felix," Minho spoke, rocking back and forth on his heels.   
"I know how hard it is... losing your best friend..."

Jisung, barely able to breathe from both his confusion and being a little too whipped, just nodded in response.

"Thanks...?" he mumbled, having no idea where the pretty boy was going with this.

"Anyway, if you need someone to sit with, at lunch, or study hall or whatever, I'm here," Minho gave the boy a tiny smile, pointing at himself.   
"Just giving you the option!"

Minho gave him a little thumbs up before waltzing back over to his desk across the classroom, leaving Jisung sitting there in complete silence.

Holy shit, if only Felix had been here to see that happen. Jisung had only rambled about how cute Lee Minho was to his best friend about a hundred times, to which Felix had always optimistically ensured Jisung that " _it would work out_ " if he tried.

And yet at the same time, Jisung felt like he could cry tears of joy. Little did Felix know he was still doing Jisung a favor despite not even being there!

He leaned back in his chair, already thinking of how he was going to totally overthink the three second interaction they'd had and rant about it to Chan over text. Not that Chan was any stranger to Jisung's ranting either... he'd been there for the last million crushes Jisung had anyway, and somehow survived through it all.

It felt just a slight bit selfish, but Jisung couldn't help but be a little mad at Felix for the effect his stunt had on Chan. He was honestly tired of having to console a crying Australian everyday, and although he tried his very best, he knew that nothing could truly fix Chan's mood more than knowing Felix was okay.

Of course, Felix was _very_ okay at the moment.

Unbeknownst to Jisung, the freckled boy was currently miles away, sitting at the table in a hotel room, laughing happily at something another person had said.

"Come on," a male voice scolded Felix playfully. "You can't move your Rook like that. It can only go up and down!"

Felix scoffed despite the grin on his face, refocusing on the game board sat on the table between him and the other boy.

The pair had found another cheap motel in a small city a few hours into their drive. They'd decided to stay the night, and quickly discovered that the concierge provided free games and activities for the guests.

So, Hyunjin was currently teaching Felix how to play chess. It was a complete disaster, to put it nicely, and Hyunjin could barely stop giggling long enough to even explain to the younger boy _what_ he was doing so horribly wrong.

The long haired boy stared, wide eyed, as Felix began to attempt moving a different piece.

"No!" he whined, covering his face with a hand as if in agony at the sight. "Bishops _only_ move diagonally! You can't put that there—" he groaned as he saw Felix burst out into laughter, clearly messing with him.

"Yeah, I know. Like this?" Felix said, moving the chess piece across the board and capturing one of Hyunjin's own pieces with it.

Hyunjin stared blankly as he lost the piece, seeing Felix actually start _winning_ the game.

"Hell no," he said, straightening his posture as if to show he was serious now. "No way I'm losing to you, I'm not gonna help anymore."

Felix jokingly pouted at this.   
"I thought you wanted me to learn?"

"Stop being better than me first," Hyunjin lamented as he planned out his next move on the board.

The two continued playing for a couple of rounds, Felix decently improving from the other boy's instruction. Truthfully, Hyunjin _was_ way better at the game, but for a first timer, the freckled boy didn't play that badly.

"Checkmate," Hyunjin announced as he cornered Felix's king piece on the board, winning the game.

"Ah, fuck," Felix lightly hit the table in frustration. "I'll win next time! Go again?"

Hyunjin only laughed at this, shaking his head.   
"Can't we play Uno or something?" he proposed instead. "Chess reminds me too much of home."

Felix nodded slowly, grabbing a pack of Uno cards from the side as he thought about what Hyunjin had just said.   
"Why does it remind you of...?"

"My parents had me join Chess Club when I was younger," Hyunjin explained as he grabbed the deck of cards from Felix, shuffling them.   
"They said I had to join a club, and they made me choose between that or _book_ _club_ , so..."

"I thought you liked reading," Felix gently teased as the boy passed him seven cards, counting them out for the game.

"I do now! But back then all I wanted to read was like... _fanfiction_ and shit," Hyunjin admitted, his tone sounding totally embarrassed at the fact.

Felix couldn't help but cackle at this, not expecting him to say that at all. "God, we would've been such good friends in middle school," he commented, looking over his cards.

"Yeah, although I doubt you would've liked my school very much," Hyunjin agreed.

"Why, was there a lot of work or something? Bad teachers?"

Hyunjin only pursed his lips as he thought about how to answer, setting the stack of extra Uno cards in the center of the table.   
"Nah... it was a private academy, so... everyone there was kinda snobby."

"Ah," Felix said understandingly. "Rich assholes."

"Hey, _wait_ ," Hyunjin lightly laughed. "I was one of them, don't... we weren't _all_ bad."

"That sounds like something a rich asshole would say," Felix blatantly teased the older boy, enjoying Hyunjin squirming to try and defend himself.

"I wasn't the worst of them, okay?" the long haired boy explained anyway. "Some kids literally brought their maids to school to carry around their shit. I carried my _own_ backpack."

"Wow, you carried your own backpack? Impressive," Felix said with a sarcastic grin, paying more attention to Hyunjin's flustered expression than the card game.

" _Felix_ ," the older boy said threateningly, setting his cards face down on the table.

"I changed my mind. No more Uno, we're going to do some sparring," he rolled up his sleeves as he stood, Felix giving a small squeak and backing away in fear.

"Come here, brat," Hyunjin beckoned as Felix got up and dashed across the room towards the door. "Fight me if you dare."

"No!" Felix called back as soon as he saw the elder running after him, a playful yet murderous look in his eyes. "Spare me, I didn't mean it—"

As Felix fumbled with the lock on the door, the other boy caught up to him, easily manhandling Felix and pushing him down onto the nearby couch.

"You're gonna regret messing with me," Hyunjin said as he pinned him down, tickling Felix's sides mercilessly.

"Heyyy, stop," he giggled, swatting at the unrelenting elder.  
"Hyunjinnie _PLEASE_ ," Felix whined despite a huge grin, weakly hitting the boy on top of him with no intent of hurting him at all.

"Am I ' _Hyunjinnie_ ' now?" he teased without stopping the onslaught of tickles. "You cannot use my affection to save yourself. Nice try," he said, the younger boy shaking with laughter beneath him.

"Oh my _god_ ," Felix practically wheezed out, trying to pry Hyunjin's hands off of him.   
"I'm sorryyy! I give up, pleaseee!"

"You really sorry?" Hyunjin asked with a grin.

" _Yes!_ " Felix nodded hurriedly. "I am!"

"Good," Hyunjin said after a moment, letting the younger boy free and crawling off of him. "You better be."

Felix laid on the sofa in a daze, still breathing heavily while Hyunjin walked off to get a drink, fixing his hair.

For some reason, despite the relief, he suddenly missed the feeling of the other's weight on top of him, still exhilarated from the moment.

Maybe, Felix thought, he should start trying to piss off Hyunjin more often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I did learn how to play chess in order to write this chapter lmfaO  
> This is really how I spend my time 💀


	10. 10

Felix was growing awfully tired of driving, and he was about five minutes away from losing his mind and demanding they pull over.

He and Hyunjin were on the road once again, the latter declaring it necessary to make haste in leaving the area and get as far away as possible fast. Felix honestly didn't even know what the city they were going to was called. Gangwon? Gangneung? It wasn't as if he'd been there or even heard of it before.

"Hyunjin," he spoke, bouncing his leg up and down with impatience. "Are we almost there?"

Hyunjin sighed. "You're still asking? I thought you'd be tired of it already after an hour."

"I just wanna get out and walk. Or eat something."

The long haired boy pointed in the backseat. "Then eat. We have food."

Felix swore to god, he would've slapped Hyunjin right then and there had he not been driving the car.

Well...

No, he wouldn't have. Felix sunk back into his seat, knowing he wasn't physically capable of harming anyone in the first place. If he tried to fight it would be more embarrassing than anything. In actuality, it probably _was_ a good idea to eat something, as sometimes when he thought he was angry he was really just peckish.

"I've heard the library there is pretty cool," Hyunjin commented, not noticing the bemused look that Felix was giving him.

"Is _that_ why you chose this place?" Felix asked incredulously. "The _library_?"

"No!" Hyunjin immediately responded, before backpedaling:

"Maybe? So what if I did?"

Felix let out a laugh of disbelief at this, shaking his head.

"You're unbelievable," he said.

"Yeah, unbelievably _sexy_ ," Hyunjin snorted, only making Felix burst out into a surprised laughter.

"Hmm, yeah, right," Felix played along with a grin.

"Anyway Lix, they've got computers at the library and I'm tryna buy some shit online," the elder explained.

"Like what?" Felix raised an eyebrow.

"A smartphone," he answered, startling Felix, who had never even considered purchasing a new one on the run. Couldn't it be tracked? Had he destroyed his phone and gotten a burner for no reason?

Hyunjin picked up on Felix's surprised look and shook his head, as if he could tell what the boy was thinking.

"They can't track it if I don't log into any of my old profiles or use my old number. It's safe, I've done this before but my last one broke."

Once again, Felix felt incredibly dumb compared to the boy next to him. Perhaps Hyunjin was his guardian angel, because god knows he was probably the only reason Felix was surviving.

"Hey, look, I think we're close!" Hyunjin continued talking after a moment, pointing out the windshield in front of him.

Surely enough, when Felix turned to look he was greeted with the sight of approaching small buildings, and farther in the distance, taller and more modern ones.

"Oh, thank god," Felix groaned, already itching to get out of the damn car for once.

"Here," Hyunjin spoke as he reached up, taking his baseball cap off of his head and smoothing a hand over his hair to fix it.

"You should wear this instead of me."

Felix flinched a little as Hyunjin placed the hat onto his head, tilting the visor down over Felix's face.

"If you wanna walk around freely, keep that on."

The younger nodded obediently, not finding the words in him to argue otherwise.

The city, whatever it was called, seemed to be much more of a quaint town than Seoul, or anywhere Felix had lived. Less people crowded the side streets, and buildings were smaller, with more of a personality than the often mundane and uniform urban buildings of his hometown.

"Hey, Hyun," Felix lightly hit the boy's shoulder, pointing towards a small restaurant down the street from them."That place looks nice."

Hyunjin squinted to read the sign of the place.  
"Ramen? Now?" he asked.

"Why not?"

Hyunjin only exhaled, changing lanes as he headed towards a spot up front. Felix clapped giddily like a little toddler as he saw the other boy silently accepting his wishes, and parking out front of the shop.

"Come on," he said, turning off the car and swinging open the door. "We might as well."

Felix scurried after the taller, following him up to the door of the shop, which Hyunjin swung open.

The place carried the energy of a quaint, family owned restaurant, although whether it actually _was_ one of those, neither knew. Felix practically dragged Hyunjin over to look at the menu, practically bouncing back and forth.

"Now, remember Lix, we _are_ on a budget—"

"Can I get this?" Felix pointed at one of the pricier bowls of ramen on the menu. Hyunjin pressed his lips into a flat line, silent for what felt like a year.

"Yeah, sure..." he agreed, covering his face with his hand as Felix skipped over to the counter to order excitedly. Something about Felix's happy grin just made it impossible to say no, and he hoped he wouldn't regret it later.

By the time both had ordered and sat down to wait, a few other customers had arrived, making the two glad they'd gotten there before the crowd.

"So," Hyunjin spoke, stirring the drink he'd bought with a straw. "Just because I said yes this time, don't think we can afford to get ramen often. Okay?"

Felix gave him a little pout.  
"Not even instant?"

The elder only rolled his eyes at this. "Well, of course we can get instant. A year's worth of it costs like $100."

"That's good enough," Felix bore a satisfied smile, leaning with his elbows on the table.

Hyunjin only gave him an amused look in return.  
"You know Lix, I can't tell if you're actually pleased or just really good at pretending."

"Ahh, why does everyone say that?" Felix groaned, making Hyunjin raise an eyebrow.

Truthfully, the question was quite understandable for anyone close to Felix. Chan had always nagged and scolded Felix for being too passive.   
" _You need to speak up for yourself sometimes,_ " Chan had advised him over and over again. Felix didn't necessarily agree with his best friend's words. What better way to avoid getting shot down than by not trying in the first place?

"Never mind," Felix changed the subject. "Anyway, have you finished your novel yet?"

"Lix, you honestly think I could be done with it already?" Hyunjin sighed. "No way. I've pretty much given up. I'm probably just gonna quit and read _Tale of Two Cities_ instead."

"I haven't read that one either," Felix noted. "Although I've heard it's good."

"Yeah, well, I'll find out, I guess," the longer haired replied, leaning back as he saw the waitress approach their table.She sat down the pair's orders, and they quietly thanked her before she left.

Hyunjin grabbed two pairs of chopsticks, passing one to Felix before breaking apart his own.   
"I think this is the first restaurant food I've had in months," he commented while lightly blowing to cool down the ramen.

"You're welcome," Felix joked, before squeaking at a light kick to the ankle from Hyunjin.

The two ate in peace, making conversation occasionally. Felix didn't know why, but the cozy atmosphere was almost comforting, as if telling him that him being here was _normal_. That he'd made the right decision to run away. Not to mention, that he'd made the right decision to trust Hwang Hyunjin with his life.

He briefly wondered if Hyunjin felt the same. Was Felix more of just a freeloader to him? Or was the elder also experiencing this... _weird_ sense of bonding through proximity?

"Isn't this place nice?" Felix asked softly, pointing around at the quirky little ceiling lights and wall paintings decorating the space.

"Definitely," Hyunjin agreed. "It's a little too minimalist for me though. I'm more of a cluttered-random-items kind of guy."

"You're _messy_ ," Felix teased, suffering from yet another kick to the ankle.

" _Hey_ ," he lightly kicked Hyunjin back, who immediately reached over the table to flick Felix's forehead. Felix slapped his hand away, grabbing firmly onto Hyunjin's wrist as to hold him in place.

The two held a tense eye contact for a moment, as if each daring the other to make the next move. This was the borderline between peace and all out warfare.

" _Um_ , excuse me, here's your check," the waitress from the restaurant grabbed their attention, setting the paper down on the table.

Felix and Hyunjin immediately separated.

"Thanks," Hyunjin muttered, giving her the cash before she hurried back off to the till.

A short silence ensued.

"Well," Felix coughed after a moment. "Should we find a hotel?"

"Yeah," Hyunjin agreed, downing the rest of his drink before standing. "Let's go. I thought I saw one near here."

Felix only hoped they could find a place before nightfall, but somehow wasn't too confident in their luck.

Well, if all went wrong, at least they could sleep in the car.


	11. 11

One month, three days, and twenty hours.

  
Lee Felix had disappeared on a Friday, one month and three days ago, and Christopher Bang felt like he was going absolutely crazy.

The dark haired boy sat in his bedroom, jotting down notes in the harsh light of his laptop. It was for his government class, which to be frank, he was growing _very_ tired of.

Although, he was kind of tired of _all_ of his class at this point.

He'd texted Jisung to come over an hour or so earlier, before chucking his phone onto his bed, not wanting it to distract him from his class work. Chan already knew that his best friend would arrive at some point, as the boy never had anything to do.

As if summoned by the thought of him, a tapping came at Chan's window, the Australian not even bothering to look at who it was.

"Come in, it's unlocked," he called out, followed by the sound of his window being pushed up.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just give me a pair of keys?" came the complaining voice of Jisung, who dragged himself over the windowsill and practically tumbled onto Chan's carpeted floor.

"You'll have to prove I can trust you with that first," Chan gave a warm, teasing smile as the younger boy padded over him, leaning over the back of his chair to peek at his work.

"What class is that for?" Jisung answered, burying his face into Chan's dark curls for a moment. He'd always seen Felix do the same, and had never understood the appeal until recently.

Chan sighed. "Government. The teacher is gonna beat my ass if I don't turn this in by midnight."

"Damn. Sucks for you," Jisung said, lightly ruffling Chan's hair before backing off as to give the other space.

He'd never been as much of a cuddler as Felix, who always had himself wrapped around Chan like some sort of human blanket. He could tell Chan missed it too, in the way that he now would linger just a bit too long in their hugs, or let Jisung mess with his hair longer than usual.

Yet, recently they hadn't been talking about Felix as much. Jisung hoped it was a good sign, in that Chan seemed to be dwelling on it less, but knew deep down the _real_ reason his name became harder and harder to say.

It was slowly becoming more and more real, that he was gone. Before, they'd talked about him with a sort of optimism, that he would only be gone for a short time. Over a month without a sighting, however...

They couldn't help but have grim thoughts.

"Oh, by the way Channie," Jisung spoke excitedly, shaking the boy's chair. "You know what day it'll be soon?"

"Hm?" Chan hummed, paying more attention to finishing the sentence he was writing than his best friend's blabbering.

"My _birthday_!" Jisung emphasized the words with a sort of excited jazz hands.

"Oh! Right!" Chan remembered immediately, giving the other a gentle pat on the shoulder. "What are we gonna do this year to celebrate?"

"Well, I dunno. Last year was pretty fun! Remember, when we went out to skate and waited until around midnight so that Felix and I could both—" Jisung instantly stopped talking as he saw his friend's happy expression falter.

"Oh, shit," Jisung swore. "Sorry, I didn't realize..."

"It's fine, Jisung," Chan only rolled his eyes, his usual comforting smile back on his face. "I remember. If you want, we could go out skating again this year. Just us two?"

Jisung grinned back.   
"Yeah, that would be great," he agreed, bending down slightly to wrap his arms around Chan's shoulders in a sort of back hug.   
"Thanks, Chan."

"Of course. I love ya, Ji," Chan teased, poking his best friend on the cheek affectionately.

"Eww, I love you too," Jisung swatted the other's hand away.   
"Now hurry up and finish your homework so we can fuckin’ _party_!"

Now, at this certain time of weekend night, one would expect any self respecting youth to be doing as Jisung would: partying, relaxing, or having an overall great time before the monotonous start of school once more.

Hwang Hyunjin was evidently not one of these people.

The boy sat on the couch of his motel room, lazily flicking through channel after channel on the television screen as he had been doing for what felt like the past hour.

And Lee Felix knew that, because he'd been watching him do so, wondering what channel Hyunjin would ultimately end up choosing. It was almost fascinating, how indecisive he seemed. Felix was more invested in seeing what show Hyunjin would pick than he would be if he were actually watching a program.

"Hey, Felix," Hyunjin called out after a moment, grabbing the younger boy's attention.   
"You feel like watching a movie?" he asked when he saw Felix look towards him quizzically.

"Uhh, sure?" Felix responded. "Which one?"

"Play a little game with me, would you?" the long haired boy replied. "Give me a number from one to ten."

"Uhh, seven?" Felix chose, watching Hyunjin click some button on the remote seven times.

"Okay, now give me a number between one and five."

"Two?" the younger answered, seeing Hyunjin click twice before selecting a movie.

"I have no idea what this is but I hope it's good," he said as he leaned back against the couch, letting the movie begin to play.   
Felix, who'd been sitting in a nearby chair, stood up and wandered towards him, taking a seat on the sofa as well.

As the film started playing, Felix got comfortable, snacking on a bag of popcorn which Hyunjin had grabbed earlier. The boy sitting next to him stole a few every so often, bearing a mischievous smile every time.

The movie, to be quite honest, was way better than expected. It seemed to be an old, romantic, French classic—with subtitles, of course—and its cinematography was undeniably good.   
It was just a _little_ too straight for Felix, but he wouldn't be caught _dead_ complaining about that in front of the other boy.

A good while through the film, Felix nearly jumped as he felt a weight on his shoulder, and soft hair brush against his neck.   
He glanced to the side to see Hyunjin, leaned up against him, and froze for a moment at the realization.

"Umm, Hyunjin?" he whispered warily.

No response came, and thus Felix peeked at his face, seeing the other boy completely asleep.

" _Oh_..." he said mostly to himself, leaning back against the couch where he'd been. Should he move the boy? He didn't want Hyunjin to wake up and be embarrassed about it, as Felix knew he would be.

Yet, for some reason... Felix didn't really _want_ to move him.

The movie continued playing, not that Felix was paying attention to it anymore. He gingerly reached up and took a lock of Hyunjin's long hair into his hands, twirling it for a moment before carefully tucking it behind his ear.

All at once, it struck him how long it had been since he'd seen his best friends. And _god_ , he missed being held.   
He was always the most touchy out of his friend group, and Chan had always satisfied Felix's constant need for cuddles.

Oh, how his every limb just _ached_ to touch someone. He looked over the tall boy next to him, fast asleep, and immediately shot down any ideas of trying. As much as he was dying for a hug, he couldn't do it to someone who hadn't okayed it first.

He let out a disappointed breath, before allowing himself to do _one_ thing. Felix leaned his head against Hyunjin's, deeming that as fair game since the elder was passed out on his shoulder.

Next thing he knew, he'd fallen asleep too.

He didn't know how many hours had passed, but when Felix found his consciousness returning, he realized he was in a very different position than he had been.

He'd awoken, expecting the feeling of the sofa below him, but as his fingertips brushed against soft bedsheets, he immediately knew something was off.

He sat upright, realizing the fact that he was in bed, with a thick blanket draped over him.

Which would've been normal, had Felix not been sleeping on the couch for the past month.

He scanned the room around him, still dark in the early morning hours. Felix's shoes, which he'd been wearing while watching the movie, were placed next to the bed, although he knew he definitely hadn't removed them himself.

A soft sound of rustling fabric brought Felix's attention to the couch across the room, where a tall figure laid draped across the couch, seemingly asleep.

Felix's mind went blank.  
Had... Hyunjin carried him to bed? And if so, _when_? And _why_?   
He also felt slightly flushed at this, thinking that the gesture was so... kind? Unnecessary?

He felt a little guilty for having stolen Hyunjin’s bed, but he laid back down against the pillow, deciding he could have this gift for one night.

Soon, he simply slipped back into the land of dreams, just a little bit more cheerful than usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie they are watching in this chapter is “Un Homme et Une Femme” (1966) ! It’s not important but I’m putting it here just in case anyone wanted to know <3


	12. 12

The scent of warm coffee and old paper lingered in the air, occupying the quiet building's every hallway and floor.

The public library of this neighborhood was bigger than any Felix had ever visited before, even hosting a cafe on one of its upper floors. Its signs displayed the whereabouts of more book genres than he even knew existed, and he couldn't help but stare at _everything_ around him.

He'd come with Hyunjin to the library today, a bit bored of staying cooped up in their motel room. Felix figured he would at least see what the boy was up to during his occasional visits to the place.

"So," Hyunjin spoke as he strolled through the area, Felix by his side. "Do you want any books? Since you're here, you might as well look around."

"Umm," Felix mumbled, still overwhelmed by all of the options. "Nah, I think I'll just... follow you around and see if anything looks interesting."

Hyunjin softly laughed at this. "Suit yourself," he said, hurrying off towards a certain section of the building.

It was quite the talent, in Felix's eyes, how Hyunjin seemed to know this place like the back of his hand already. The boy did go here at least once a week, but the area was so big, Felix swore he would be constantly getting lost.

A certain shelf caught his eye, and Felix stopped, tugging on Hyunjin's sleeve.

"Can I look over here?" he asked as if needing permission, followed by a nod from Hyunjin.

"Yeah? Of course," the elder answered, before pointing in another direction. "I'm, uh, gonna go over towards that section. Come get me when you're done."

Felix nodded at this, giving Hyunjin a cute smile and a thumbs up. The elder playfully scoffed, before turning on his heel and walking off.

Left alone in the comics section, Felix was free to ignore the presence of actual literature and dash straight to the manga, picking up what looked like a knock off version of _Sailor Moon_.  
Sure, he respected his roommate's whole intellectual thing going on, but Felix?

Felix was an anime type of guy.

At one point, he found himself sitting on the floor, flipping through a volume of some 1990's shoujo manga, when he realized that he'd been in this aisle for a rather long time...

He stood up, stretching, and taking a couple of books with him as he wandered out of the shelves.

Glancing around, he didn't see the person he'd come with anywhere nearby, and thus Felix made his way over to the area he'd been told to go to.

" _20th Century Literature_ ," a sign on one of the shelves read, making Felix smile in amusement. Typical Hyunjin, he thought. He would probably have to force the boy into reading something written after the year 2000.

Felix paused in his footsteps as he caught sight of Hyunjin, a few shelves away. The boy was facing away from him, staring towards the shelf, and didn't seem to notice Felix's presence yet.

He watched for a moment, curious at the boy's behavior. Hyunjin's fingertips sat against the edge of a book, lightly caressing its spine, as if afraid to take the initiative and pick it up.

"Hey, Hyun," Felix called out quietly, walking towards him as if he hadn't been looking at him for a solid minute.

Hyunjin flinched, whipping around at the sound of Felix's voice.   
"Ah, Lix..." he addressed, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "Did you find something you want?"

"Actually, yeah," Felix confirmed, keeping an eye on the nervous movement of Hyunjin's hands. "But I need a library card to check them out."

"No problem, I have one," Hyunjin waved his concern off, striding over to Felix and taking the pile of manga out of his hands.  
"Come on, I can check it out for you."

"Mm, thanks," Felix nodded enthusiastically, but a nagging feeling held him back.  
"Could you go and check them out for me? I kinda wanted to look at the display they had over there," Felix gestured towards a shelf with books and pictures, advertising some event about marine life.

"Sure," Hyunjin gently flicked Felix on the shoulder. "Be quick though," he gave him a little smile before turning to leave.

Felix watched as Hyunjin walked away, slowly disappearing from sight among the forest of shelves that took up the room. As soon as he was absolutely sure that the elder was gone, Felix _immediately_ stumbled over towards the bookshelf next to him.

He honestly didn't give a single damn about the marine life event display. He just wanted to know what book was capable of embarrassing _the_ literature nerd Hwang Hyunjin enough to the point of not getting it.

Felix grabbed the book he'd seen Hyunjin staring at and flipped it over, glancing at the cover.

" _Maurice_ ," it read, in a simple serif font. Well, so far so good. The title didn't give Felix any idea as to what it could contain, so he turned it onto its back, scanning over the plot summary.

" _Maurice_ , written in 1914, yeah yeah..." Felix muttered to himself as he got through the mundane information on the back.   
"A schoolboy deals with becoming an adult in 20th century England, and comes to realize his romantic interest in the same sex—"

Felix stopped for a moment, squinting at the words on the page, not understanding them at all for a brief moment.

 _What_?

He felt almost numb as he read through the rest of the paragraph on the back cover.  
 _A pinnacle of classic gay literature_ , one of the reviews read. _A fairytale-worthy happy ending_.

Felix shoved the book back into the shelf, glancing away from it. He instantly regretted looking. He should've minded his business, and not opened this can of worms just to satisfy his stupid curiosity, because he knew he was going to be up thinking about this all night now.

It made sense, in retrospect, why Hyunjin would be embarrassed for reading this kind of thing. Felix couldn't imagine how mortifying it would be if a classmate of his caught him reading something like _that_...

But then again, Felix was actually gay. And Hyunjin, was...

Straight?

Felix shook his head, not wanting to overthink anything. He decided to make his way towards the front of the library now, and soon came across the long, dark haired boy lingering near the front entrance.

"You ready to leave?" Hyunjin asked as he saw Felix approach, not noticing the way Felix looked him up and down for a second.

"Yep," Felix responded, taking his precious mangas out of the elder's arms and carrying them instead. He glanced down at the check-out receipt as they left, noticing the date in the top corner.

"Oh, it's already the 12th?" he wondered aloud, catching Hyunjin's attention.

"Yeah?" Hyunjin spoke, kicking a rock along the sidewalk.

 _It's Jisung's birthday in two days_ , Felix immediately thought. He was used to planning their celebration a few days in advance, and felt a sort of ache in his chest at the thought of not seeing him this time. The pair always had a tradition: to go out and party late at night, exchange gifts, and then, when midnight hit and the date changed...

"Shit!" Felix blurted out, as if just now realizing. "It's _my_ birthday in three days!"

Hyunjin stared at him, wide eyed. "Really? Fuck, you should've told me earlier! I have to find a gift in three days now," he complained.

Felix only grinned at this, gently elbowing the taller in the side.  
"You don't have to get me anything, it's fine," he said. "I honestly would've forgotten about it if I didn't see the date just now."

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, clearly showing distaste for that answer.  
"How sad would it be to celebrate your... wait, how old even are you?"

"Seventeen..." Felix mumbled, not sure where the other was going with this.

"Right. How sad would it be to celebrate your eighteenth birthday with no gifts? You think I can let that happen?" Hyunjin continued, explaining his motivation animatedly.

Felix tensed up a bit as Hyunjin swung an arm over his shoulders, giving him a friendly squeeze.   
"I'll get something for you, I promise," he spoke, with Felix too distracted to do anything but nod.

His mind was clouded, unable to decide what thought to focus on. Hyunjin's hand on his shoulder, the book he'd been reading earlier, and the unexplainable recent kindness of the elder boy... all of these seemed to prefer being kept silent, and thus all Felix could think to say was:

"Where'd you get the library card from, by the way?"

Hyunjin blinked, a little thrown off by the question out of nowhere. "Why? They're not that hard to get."

"Oh, well, you know," Felix backed himself up. "You need an ID to get those. Wouldn't the police get notified if yours was used?"

"Well," Hyunjin said, pursing his lips. "I didn't really have that problem, becauusee I uhhh, stole iiiitt?" he admitted, lengthening his words as if to lessen their impact.

Felix jokingly glared at him.   
"You're robbing _people_ now? What if somebody needed that?" 

"No, no, trust me, she didn't need it," Hyunjin argued on his own behalf. "I stole it from my family's maid."

Felix raised his eyebrows.   
"You stole it from your family's m—"

" _Ex_ maid, really," Hyunjin elaborated. "She was moving to Japan. It would've been completely useless there."

"Hyunjin..." Felix spoke with a mix between scolding and confusion.

"You know I'm right!" the elder argued. "How is she gonna use a Korean library card in Japan?"

Felix only sighed, accepting that he would never fully understand the way that the elder boy's mind worked.   
"I guess so," he gave up. "Just... don't start mugging people, okay?"

"Fine," Hyunjin dramatically sighed, as if it were the hardest thing in the world. "I'll _try_ not to mug people. No promises."

Felix fought a stupid grin back at this, slowly growing used to the feeling of the taller's arm still draped over his shoulders.

Maybe he needed to accompany Hyunjin on another library trip later, because something about the air there just felt perfect...

And he wasn't entirely sure that it was the library's fault.


	13. 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music referenced in this chapter is linked [HERE!](https://spoti.fi/3kQ7h4m)
> 
> Use it if you want the full experience during the scene hahah

Light rain pattered against the building, a calm yet steady presence to distract Felix from his thoughts.

The time was rather late at night, around eleven or so, if Felix had to guess. With nothing particularly interesting to do, as he'd already finished the manga he'd gotten two days prior, he laid down on the couch, trying to take a nap despite not being tired.

Hyunjin had been gone for a few hours, and Felix almost would've found it weird had the boy not been used to it by now. The elder would often disappear for hours on end, whether to get a new book, fill his car with gas, or do whatever he needed done. Felix didn't bother to question him every time.

It wasn't for another twenty minutes or so that the door to the motel room swung open, a tall boy stepping into the room carrying multiple items in his arms.

" _Feliiiix_ ," the dark haired boy called out as he kicked the door shut with his heel, dumping what appeared to be a large brown briefcase on the kitchen table along with a few bagged items.  
"You better be awake, I've got something to show you~"

Felix sat up, staring at the items across the room with a mild interest as Hyunjin took off his jacket, shaking some of the rain off of himself.

"Where have you been?" Felix asked for probably the first time ever, genuinely wondering this time what he'd been up to.

Hyunjin only gave him a vague smile. "Come here, I think you'll wanna see this."

Felix gave him a wary look before standing and padding over towards him, placing a hand gingerly on the briefcase-looking item.

"Open it," Hyunjin encouraged, and Felix did so, lifting the lid to reveal a strange looking mechanism. It displayed multiple knobs and buttons, had a large empty circular space, and a sort of metal arm connected to a small needle.

Felix furrowed his eyebrows.   
"Is this a..."

"Yep!" Hyunjin cut him off excitedly, before he could even answer. "It's a record player. And look what I got for free with it!" he said, reaching into one of the large bags he'd brought. He pulled out a stack of large, paper album sleeves, each one presumably containing a vinyl record inside.

Felix glanced between all of the items. "How much did this cost? And... why?"

Hyunjin didn't give an answer, instead holding the stack of vinyl sleeves in his hands.

"Give me a number from one to ten," he said, Felix rolling his eyes at the usual game.

"Five," Felix responded, and Hyunjin pulled the fifth album out from the middle of the stack, gently slipping out the record itself and placing it onto the turntable.

He couldn't help but poke at the multiple buttons and knobs on the thing, wondering what each did. Felix had always found record players kind of cool, but had never gotten the chance to use one.

Hyunjin apparently had finished setting it up as he placed the needle down on the record, before switching it on.

The sound of an old slow song began to play, its soft instrumentals bringing a smile to Hyunjin's face.

"I always loved this song," he admitted. "It's probably my favorite one to dance to."

Felix listened to the tune for a moment, hearing the singer join in on the track, a famous one who he'd definitely heard before but didn't know the name of.

"Dance...?" Felix questioned, hearing its calm melody. "Not very upbeat, is it?"

" _Slow_ dancing, silly. Like the waltz," Hyunjin flicked him on the shoulder.

"Ah," Felix replied, a little embarassed at not having thought of it. "You know how to do that?"

"What, you _don't_?" Hyunjin asked incredulously, seeing Felix gain a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look.   
"Really? It's easy."

"Yeah... maybe for _you_ ," he replied as Hyunjin stepped out into the open space between the kitchen and living area.

"Come on," he gestured for Felix to join him. "I'll teach you. It's really easy, I promise!"

Felix hesitated, taking a moment to really process the offer.  
"You sure...?" he questioned. "Doesn't it need to be with... a _girl_?"

Hyunjin gave him a confused look. "You're short enough, if that's what you mean?" he said, totally not addressing what Felix was actually hinting at.

The younger only sighed, accepting the circumstances and walking near to Hyunjin.

"So?" he began. "What am I supposed to do?"

Hyunjin gave him a grin. "Wow. Has no one ever invited you to a ball?"

Felix lightly glared at him.   
"Now why in the hell would someone—"

The elder gently cleared his throat, as if preparing to get into the act. "Well, first and foremost, it's polite to ask the other person, so..."

Hyunjin gave a dramatic bow, before offering out his left hand towards the younger.  
"May I have this dance, my dear?" he spoke with an amused grin.

Felix bit back a smile at this, thinking maybe, it wouldn't hurt to play along.

"Of course," he replied, placing his right hand on the elder's.

"Yeah, exactly!" Hyunjin praised as if the response weren't common sense. "Now, for more formal dancing, you've gotta know the arm positions."

Felix felt a little heat rising to his face as the elder rested his right hand just above Felix's waist.

"Put your left up here," Hyunjin instructed calmly, glancing at his own shoulder to indicate where. His words were steady and methodical, making Felix wonder briefly if he was the only one overthinking it a little.

Once Felix's left hand rested upon Hyunjin's shoulder, the elder held their other hands out to the side, still clasped together.

"That's all. Isn't it simple?" he asked, the younger still unable to find the words to reply.

"The steps can be as easy as you want them to be," Hyunjin stated, gently encouraging Felix to look down. "Try following me. I'm gonna step twice to your right, then twice to your left. Okay?"

Felix nodded, despite the bubbles of anxiousness he still felt in his chest. The older boy took two steps to the right, as told, and Felix carefully followed him. For the steps left, Felix tried to match the other's timing.

"Right!" Hyunjin complimented. "Now, just do that a hundred times, and boom! That's slow dancing!"

Felix let out a soft laugh at this.  
"Okay, fine. I guess you were right, it is _kinda_ easy."

With the song still playing, Hyunjin led the boy's steps in time to the rhythm, matching the dance's pace. Felix couldn't help but stare up at him, not used to being this close.

To be honest, this was the kind of situation right out of his wildest dreams. Being in the arms of a pretty boy, slow dancing to an old love song... it was the exact type of thing he would _yearn_ for.

Hyunjin turned, making eye contact with the younger for what felt like an eternity before glancing away.   
"You're better than a lot of people I know," he commented offhandedly. "Most of them kinda just do the prom dancing thing."

Felix blinked.  
"I haven't been to one."

"You know," Hyunjin tried. "Like, the..."He sighed, deeming it better to show than to tell. He grabbed both of Felix's arms, placing them over his own shoulders, before resting both of his hands on the boy's waist.

"This," he said. "This kind."

Felix felt his grip on reality slip away from him for a brief moment.  
“Ah, yeah...” he muttered, the other still calmly swaying him in time to the music. Up this close, he found himself focusing on a little beauty mark right below Hyunjin’s eye, which he’d never paid much attention before.

“Have you always had that...?” Felix wondered out loud, making the elder raise an eyebrow.

“What?” Hyunjin questioned.

“Oh,” Felix spoke, embarassed at being caught off guard. “Nothing.”

Hyunjin seemed to want to ask, but chose not to pry further. Instead, he returned to their original, proper dance position, composing himself before continuing with his lesson.

“You think you’re ready to try out the box step?” he questioned.

Felix only took a deep breath.

The slow rhythm of the song set a sort of comfortable tone in the room. As Hyunjin taught the simple step routine and gave tips to Felix, he almost didn’t feel nervous anymore... even when accidentally stomping on Hyunjin’s feet a couple times.

“Ahh, let’s try something different,” the long haired boy said after a while, briefly leaving the other’s hold in order to flip over the vinyl on the record player.

“You heard this before?” Hyunjin asked as a song began to play, one that Felix instantly recognized.

Felix rolled his eyes at the question.

“Who doesn’t know _Dancing Queen_?”he asked rhetorically, knowing it was probably one of the most famous 70’s songs ever.

Hyunjin only laughed at this, taking Felix by the hand and gingerly leading him towards the center of the room. Back in position, although a bit more energetic now, he didn’t have to lead too strongly, as the younger already knew the patterns of the song.

Caught up in the music’s joyful rhythm, and cracking jokes to one another every so often, Felix barely reacted in time when the elder announced out of nowhere:   
“Lix, let’s do a spin.” 

“ _Huh_ —?” Felix barely spoke before Hyunjin brought their intertwined hands up and over his head, twirling the boy around without warning.

Felix couldn’t help but start laughing at this, in a state of disoriented yet happy shock.   
“Why?!” he blurted out, despite his giggly tone.

Hyunjin gave a shrug and a smile as he rested his arms on the younger’s shoulders.  
“That would’ve looked prettier if you were in a skirt,” he excused it, not really helping at all.

To call the moment a whirlwind would have been an understatement. In Felix’s eyes, it felt like being caught up in more of a wave, unable to do anything but ride it out for as long as it lasted.  
A sense of indescribable contentment fell upon him, as he still laughed at Hyunjin’s stupid jokes or made the wrong dance step.

It felt as if he was genuinely enjoying himself, for once. The last few weeks, while littered with their small moments of joy, hadn’t quite given him a true sense of peace yet... but this comfortable, natural pace made him sure that _this_ was where he was meant to be right now.

After a while, Hyunjin glanced across the room, slightly interrupting the pattern the two had fallen into as he stood still to read something.

“One sec!” Hyunjin let go of the other, dashing over to the kitchen and opening their fridge.

Felix lingered behind him, watching the elder with a questioning amusement. The boy pulled out something that looked like a dark bottle of wine, cork sealing the top of it.

The younger gave him a wide eyed stare. “Is that alcohol???” he inquired, with Hyunjin only chuckling at the words.

He got out two champagne glasses from the cabinet, setting them on the counter.“No,” he answered as he popped the bottle open. “It’s just sparkling juice. I’m not old enough to buy real wine.”

Felix gave a dumb smile as the boy poured two equal cups, passing one over to him. Yet, as Felix raised the glass to take a sip, Hyunjin quickly grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

“ _Wait_ ,” Hyunjin said. “Not yet. Trust me.”

A silence ensued as Hyunjin glanced back over across the room. Felix turned his head, wondering just what the hell the elder was looking at, and spotted a clock on the wall.

“What are we waiting for...?” Felix asked, right as he saw the hands of the clock shift, signaling it had struck midnight.

The long haired boy raised his glass, clinking it against Felix’s in a toast. And just as Felix gave him a questioning glance...

“ _Happy birthday_ ,” Hyunjin wished sincerely, a warm smile painted across his face.

All Felix could do was blink. Those were the _last_ words he’d expected to hear, and it took him a moment to even think about how to react.

He immediately abandoned his drink on the counter, practically throwing himself at the elder boy and trapping him in a tight hug.

“You remembered!” Felix squeaked out against Hyunjin’s shirt, feeling said boy’s laughter through his chest.   
“Even _I_ forgot about it.”

“I promised, didn’t I?” Hyunjin squeezed him back. “Sorry I couldn’t do more. This was all I could afford.”

“Dummy,” Felix chided. “This was more than enough. Thank you,” he said as the taller gently ruffled his hair.

A buzz of giddiness took ahold of him as he let go, taking his first sip of the fake-wine the elder had bought.

“Hey,” Felix commented. “This is actually kinda good?”

“Mhmm,” Hyunjin agreed, only able to hum the sentiment as he took a swig from his glass.

Felix poured a little more from the bottle into his glass, already foreseeing that they would stay up _very_ late chatting that night.

Fake alcohol or not, he was sure that the strange buzz of happiness he felt coursing throughout was anything _but_ fake.


	14. 14

Felix awoke to the scent of hot tea, and the dull sounds of cars nearby rattling through the streets.

He had no idea what time it was, and as he sluggishly tried to sit upright, he realized that he was still wearing last night's clothes. Blurry memories of staying up dancing until the early morning hours filtered through his head.

Upon glancing around, he took notice of his long haired roommate, Hyunjin, sitting at their dining table. A cup of hot tea sat next to him, and the boy held a book in his hands (as usual) while flipping the page every so often.

Felix must've made a little noise, because the elder glanced over at him.

"Morning, birthday boy," he greeted, before turning his attention back to his novel.

Felix, still sluggish and wishing he were asleep, only nodded in reply to this as he stood up from the couch. He wandered over towards the table, plopping down in the seat across from the elder.

"What time—"

"Five in the afternoon," Hyunjin responded without looking up from the page he was on.

A short silence ensued. Felix watched the other boy read for a moment, wondering why he suddenly felt like something was off. Hyunjin's expression stayed blank, obviously focused on the book more than anything else.

"So... how's the novel?" Felix asked after a moment, not liking how quiet it was.

Hyunjin glanced up for a moment.   
"Hm?"

"Oh, nothing," Felix responded on instinct, suddenly feeling a little bad for distracting him. "Just wanted to know how the book is going..."

No response came.

Now, Felix was _really_ wondering what was up. Had he done something? Normally the other boy was always eager to rant way too much about the plot points of any book he was reading.

"Um, hey, Hyunjin, is something wro—" Felix stopped talking as Hyunjin instantly shut his book and placed it down on the table.

"You know, Felix, it occurs to me that I still have no idea _why_ you're here," Hyunjin began, giving a light smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Felix stared at him for a moment.

"What... like _here_ here? Didn't you say I should come with you...?" he recalled, confused at what he interpreted to be anger from the elder boy.

"No, I mean at all," Hyunjin continued. "Running away in the first place."

Felix paused at this. "I don't... really wanna talk about it."

"Fine, whatever," the elder played with the sleeves of his own hoodie. "But just for the record, it would be kinda nice if you actually told me things."

Felix furrowed his eyebrows, now incredibly confused as to whatever the boy was pissed about.   
"What? What am I supposed to have told you? You've seen everything I've done for over a month, right?"

Hyunjin held the younger's gaze for a long moment, as if searching for any hint that Felix was just fucking with him.

"You really keep to yourself, you know that?" the boy ran a hand through his dark hair. "I've been practically dumping my whole life and memories on you this whole time, and I can't name a single thing about you that's not personality related."

Felix's mind went blank at this.   
"Well...? Uh, what— what do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, who the hell is _Channie_?" Hyunjin leaned back in his chair, seeing Felix's expression drop.

"He's..." Felix mumbled, a weird sense of sadness washing over him at the mention of the boy.   
"Wait, how do you even know about him?"

"You've got a Polaroid of him in your backpack with a name and hearts scribbled all over it. Can't I be curious?" the elder raised his eyebrows.

"What—" Felix responded, coughing a bit. "Why were you looking through my stuff?"

" _Who_ is he?"

"He's my best friend???" Felix spoke, exasperated. "Plus, I swear Jisung is also in that picture," he mumbled more to himself.

"Hm," was Hyunjin's only answer, giving the flustered Felix an unreadable look.

"Really, he is," Felix found himself elaborating. He didn't know what it was, but something inside him wanted to make sure that the tall boy across from him didn't get the wrong idea.   
"He's more like family than a friend, honestly. We've known each other for so long..."

"Ah," Hyunjin chimed in, noticeably more perky. "I get that. My best friend is the same way. He's still taking care of my dog for me."

A little startled by the tone switch, Felix took a moment to formulate a response. "Damn... I didn't even tell mine I was leaving. I thought he'd try to stop me."

Hyunjin took a sip from his cup. "That's no fun. My best friend was like _'ah, fuck, finally he's leaving_ ,'" he joked.

Felix played with the edge of Hyunjin's novel on the table. "What's his name?" he inquired, subtly trying to avert the conversation away from himself.

"His name's Minho!" Hyunjin responded, making Felix hit his knee on the table accidentally.

" _Shit_ ," he cursed, holding his knee, but quickly looking back towards the taller boy. "Is his last name _Lee_ by any chance?"

"Yeah?" Hyunjin asked, the comment processing for a moment. "What, you know him?"

"I... dunno. There's a rich kid who's really popular at my school called that. I only know about him because..." Felix trailed off. It wasn’t like he’d sat through countless hours of Jisung ranting and babbling on about how _gorgeous_ Lee Minho looked that day, or anything... or god forbid, survived Jisung yelling that the boy had even walked within three meters of him.

Hyunjin stared at Felix for a moment. "You know about him because what?" 

"Uh, it's nothing..."

" _Felix_ ," Hyunjin whined, making the younger cringe just a little at the thought of exposing his best friend like this. However, he supposed, telling Hyunjin wouldn't hurt _too_ bad.

" _Okayyy_ ," he gave in. "It's because one of my best friends has a huge crush on him. So I hear about everything he does," Felix admitted. Yet, as he noted the contemplative expression on Hyunjin's face, he immediately remembered that the elder had _seen_ his best friends, and knew that both were _male_.

As Felix opened his mouth to speak, the other boy cut him off.   
"Which one? Channie or the other one?"

"Just call him Chan," Felix corrected briefly. "But not him. It's the other one, his name's Jisung."

Hyunjin gave him a weird look.  
"Like Jisung _Han_?"

"The fuck? How did you know that—" Felix was interrupted by Hyunjin bursting out into laughter, cracking up so hard he nearly hit his cup of tea straight off the table.

"Holy _shit_!" he blurted out between laughs.   
“Felix, I think our best friends are gonna get together without us even knowing about it!"

"What...?" Felix mumbled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's had a thing for Jisung for like a whole _year_. You know he intentionally sits in front of him in classes to, and I quote," Hyunjin made the quotation marks gesture with his fingers, " _try to tempt Jisung into talking to me for once_."

"Seriously?" Felix spoke, an amazed grin on his face. "Shit, they're both crazy! Perfect for each other."

"Right?" Hyunjin agreed. "Damn, the world's a small place. I should've said yes when Minho begged me to enroll in his school instead of the one I was at."

The younger giggled at this. "Yeah, why didn't you?"

"My parents wouldn't let me," Hyunjin rolled his eyes. "Said I had to have a ‘more sophisticated education.’ Whatever that means."

"Why do your parents sound like they would hate me?" Felix commented, almost shivering at the idea of these horrible sounding adults.

"They probably would," Hyunjin commented without a thought, but immediately backed up as he saw the younger's hurt expression. "It's not _you_ , they just never really liked me hanging out with uhh... how do I put this nicely?"

Felix blinked. "Just say it."

"Middle class...?" Hyunjin spoke hesitantly. "Like, public school kids. Anyone whose income was way lower than ours... I _know_! I know how it sounds," he tried to defend himself as he saw the younger give him a glare.

"How rich are you? The hell?" Felix questioned with just a hint of disgust.

“I’m not like that, trust me!” Hyunjin waved his hands back and forth, totally avoiding the question.   
“If it was up to me I would have gone to normal schooling my whole life...”

A short silence ensued, the younger lightly tapping his fingers against the table. Something about the guilty look on Hyunjin’s face made him think that he should drop the topic.

“Well, I guess what matters is the way you are now,” Felix said, attempting a smile for comfort.   
“As long as you don’t start calling me a peasant or anything...”

“Not funny, Lix.”

Felix giggled at this. “ _Alright_ , sorry.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Hyunjin blurted out after a second. “We were supposed to be talking about _you!_ How did my family come up again?” he realized.

Felix grinned despite the twinge of annoyance at the other noticing.   
“Not my fault it’s so easy to get you to talk about yourself.”

Hyunjin gave him an evil look, picking up his novel rather dramatically from the table and opening it.   
“Never answering any of your questions again,” he mumbled, just to be petty.

The shorter smiled at this for some reason, finding the childish behavior somewhat endearing. At least it seemed like Hyunjin was in a normal mood again.

Felix got up from his chair, wandering over to the kitchen and opening the room’s mini fridge.

“We should get some more drinks,” he said, seeing only bottled water and some of the fake-wine left over from the previous night.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll go rob the store later,” Hyunjin responded with such a monotone that Felix laughed as if it had been a joke. And it definitely was not, just to be clear.

“You know how weird I thought you were at first, Jinnie?” Felix mused, taking one of the water bottles and twisting it open.“Like, who steals food but claims to be rolling in money?”

“You’re lucky I planned out my expenses,” the elder replied, glancing behind him to watch the younger as he shut the fridge. “Otherwise we’d be living in my car.”

“At least you have a car,” Felix responded. “How’d you get that anyway?”

“I already said I won’t answer your questions,” Hyunjin gave him a mischievous grin, before turning back to his novel.

God, how annoying. His behavior was, by all accounts, just irritating, but Felix bit back a pleased smile as he padded back over to the table, taking the seat next to the elder boy instead.

“Is this still _Tale of Two Cities?_ ” Felix asked, leaning over to get a glance at the pages over the other’s shoulder.

Hyunjin tensed a little as Felix’s hair brushed up against his neck.   
“Yeah. I’m almost finished with it.”

“You know, I actually used to be really into reading,” Felix spoke, instinctively resting his head against the taller boy’s shoulder for real this time. “Then in middle school I got way more into manga and stopped.”

“Haha, um, yeah,” Hyunjin responded, fidgeting with the corner of a page.   
“I figured, considering what you got at the library...”

Felix almost offered to show the elder his collection, but immediately shut his mouth upon realizing that they were all stacked in his room at _home_. Needless to say, that eliminated any possibility of showing him. And now that he thought about it, he was just a little pissed at the thought of not being able to see his collection again.

As he sat, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, a knock came at the door, making both glance over.

“Are we expecting anyone?” Felix questioned, to which Hyunjin vehemently shook his head. The younger began to stand, but Hyunjin placed a hand on his shoulder, gesturing for him to stop.

“I’ll go see who it is. Don’t do anything,” he advised, before heading towards the door.

Honestly, it didn’t seem like the biggest deal. Every so often room service would show up to clean or do maintenance, and thus Felix leaned his head against the table, watching the scene with a hint of curiosity, but mainly boredom.

Hyunjin peeked through the peephole on the door, and a blank look washed over his face.

“Hey, Lix?” he called out, making the younger tilt his head as to show he was listening.

“Look the other way for me real quick?” the long haired boy asked.

Felix gave him a confused stare, but did as told. He glanced in the opposite direction, wondering what the purpose of this was.

He heard only the sound of their door unlocking and opening— which was immediately followed by some sort of thud, and the thumping of something on what sounded like carpet.

“Okay! You can probably look now,” Hyunjin called out, sounding a little shaken.

Felix didn’t know what he was expecting to see when he turned around, but it certainly was _not_ the sight of a stranger crumpled on the floor in their doorway, a pocket knife in the man’s limp hand.

He glanced between the unconscious body and the other boy, holding eye contact with a gaze that must have read ‘ _what the fuck?_ ’

“Well!” Hyunjin announced, a forced cheerfulness to his tone. “Looks like we’re leaving again!”

“Why—” Felix tried to even form a question, standing up from his seat and walking over to the man passed out on their floor.   
“What did you do to him?”

“Nothing much, he’ll live,” the elder answered as he walked over to grab his bags, and started shoving his personal belongings into them.   
“Though could you do me a favor and take his knife?”

“ _What?_ ” Felix stuttered out. “Ohhh my god. Okay, sure,” he spoke, fumbling to pry the man’s fingers open and grab the knife’s handle.

Hyunjin had apparently mastered packing his bags very quickly, and rushed over to take the weapon from the younger.   
“Hey— _hey_ , listen,” he said as he saw the look on the boy’s face. “It’s not the end of the world. It’s fine.”

Felix remained silent, and Hyunjin only sighed.   
“Take these out to the car,” he ordered softly, handing off his bags to Felix. “I’ll pack your stuff for you. Don’t worry about it.”

The younger boy only mumbled a small sentiment of thanks, before swinging the bags over his shoulder. He had to step over the body on his way out the door, which definitely wasn’t the most pleasant experience he’d had.

He really felt numbness, more than anything, although a jarring feeling of being too naive also settled in the pit of his stomach. In retrospect, there was no way they would’ve been able to stay hidden in the same place forever, as much as he wished it were that easy. He hadn’t even bothered asking Hyunjin _who_ on earth that man was yet, but judging by the reaction, he wasn’t too sure he wanted to know.

As he reached the car and dumped Hyunjin’s bags in the trunk, he couldn’t help but climb into the backseat of the car and lie down. All he wanted to do was just space out for a while, and not have to think about the situation.

Thus, he laid there for a good while until the front car door opened, Hyunjin peeking his head in.

“You okay? We gotta go,” the long haired boy spoke, seeing Felix totally zoning out in the backseat.

“No,” Felix responded simply, but sat up anyway.

“Where are we headed?” he asked, lazily crawling over into the front passenger seat, not willing to actually get out of the car.

“I’ve got two ideas,” Hyunjin answered, narrowly avoiding being hit in the face by the boy maneuvering through the middle of his car.   
“The first one is that we find another hotel in a city near here and stay the night.”

“As usual,” Felix commented, coming across a little more snarky than intended.

“ _Or_ , if you don’t like that idea,” the elder continued. “My cousins have a beach house down near Ulsan. It’s a really long drive, but I think it’s a good option.”

Felix gave him a wide eyed look.“Isn’t that really risky? What if your family catches us?”

Hyunjin elder only pursed his lips at this as he started up the car, readjusting the mirrors for a moment.   
“I know that they wouldn’t be there during this time of year. They never leave anyone to watch it, and it’s just empty most of the time. Plus, there’s no cameras,” he reasoned.

“God, the blessings of a wealthy family,” Felix briefly lamented. “Fine, if you think it’s a good option then let’s go. I’ll trust you on it.”

The radio quietly came on as the elder began driving, bringing back memories of the last time the pair had been in this situation.

“Well...” was all Hyunjin could comment as he pulled over towards the road, glancing around to make sure the streets were empty.

“ _Here we go again_.”


End file.
